About Ian

I thought I would take a moment to share about our middle child, Ian. Although he can absolutely drive us crazy he can also be such a delight. I'm going to share with you a little of both!

Last weekend, Ian complained of his ears hurting and since we'd been to the pool, we put some alcohol in his ears thinking that would help. The next day he was still complaining of his ears hurting. Well, Tuesday afternoon he and I were standing outside waiting for his coach to pick him up for practice when I, for some reason, looked in his ears and could, clear as day, see something green in his ear! Later, I looked in the other one and could see something in that one, too! So, the next day I made a doctor's appointment and we went knowing that they probably wouldn't be able to get it and we'd have to get a referral to an ENT (we went through this last year, too). Well, I was right so we waited to get a phone call about when we could take him to the ENT. Thankfully, we were able to get an appointment for the next morning and the doctor pulled the piece of green crayon out of his left ear and a piece of some sort of thing out of his right ear plus some wadded up paper. Ian promises he's not doing it and I'm trying to believe him because I also know he likes to scrape crayons with his fingers and then he gets stuff in his fingernails and scratches his ear so it's possible he's not doing it on purpose. While we were there the doctor checked his hearing because he's got some fluid in his ears. He would like to have Ian's hearing checked again in the fall because apparantly his right ear is on the edge of not being "average" and we may end up having to put tubes in! Wow - I thought we were past the age for that sort of thing! We'll see. So, anyway, that is one thing that annoys me about Ian - having to now take him to the doctor two years in a row to have stuff removed from his ears!!!

Something about Ian I love, though, is his willingness and eagerness to be helpful with almost anything and especially his sister! The three of us went to the commissary the other day after his doctor's appointment and he was so helpful - with the shopping and keeping his sister happy! Plus, after we got home, he brought all the bags in for me without me even asking him to!

One more thing...Ian has been saving his money for some time now. We have a bank for him that's divided into three sections: church, store and bank. After Christmas he had a pretty good stash built up and I told him if he saved his store money he could buy something "big" like a Wii or something else more expensive that he wants. So, he thought that was a good idea. Well, this past week our neighbors were out of town and had asked us to look after their dog for them while they were gone. Ian did a great job and would check on him a couple of times a day plus, was excited about scooping the dog's poop! Well, when they got home they gave us a couple of souveneirs from their trip plus a thank you card with some cash in it for Ian. It was just what Ian needed to put him at enough for a Wii! So, yesterday we went to Target and got his Wii! With baseball last night and this morning he hasn't had time to play it much but I'm very proud of the way he saved up and achieved his goal!