Monster spray, sign language and "WHAT'S growing in my daughter's ear???"

A few posts ago, I made brief mention of monster spray, but I realized I never got back to it. I have to share, because it's worked SO well!! We'd been having problems with Anthony (3 yrs, 9 months) not wanting to go to sleep at night and waking during the night crying. He hadn't used the word "monster," though - just said he was scared. He never could really identify WHAT he was scared of. But the nightly routine was getting really old.

I happened to scan an article on monsters and night scares in Family Fun magazine for ideas, thinking there might be something useful for the future - not really thinking I'd find anything particularly relevant for the immediate problem, since the article was specifically about monsters. Lo and behold, about a week after I read the article, during the nightly crying, I heard Darrell trying to get Anthony to go to sleep and I overheard the word "monsters" come out of Anthony's mouth. I sprung into action!!

I grabbed a small, empty spray bottle, filled it with mostly water, a little bit of rubbing alcohol (to help the water evaporate better), and a few drops of lavender and sweet orange essential oils. I took the bottle to Anthony and told him I had something special for him - "Monster Spray." He was THRILLED. Seriously - so excited he leaped out of our bed, took the bottle, and ran to his room to spray all the monsters away!! He happily climbed back into his bed, asked if he could keep the bottle on his bedside in case the monsters came back during the night, and we didn't hear another peep from him the rest of the night!!

It has continued to work, and as an added bonus - his room smells awesome!! I did find that the trigger-style spray bottle works better than a fingertip pump-style - he couldn't spray that kind.

In other news, Mackenzie has astounded both her early intervention teacher and us in the last week with how quickly she's beginning to mimic the signs we're teaching her. She did "more" for me in Target on Monday when she wanted more crackers. With her teacher Monday afternoon, she did "dog," "bear," and "bus." Maybe some others - I can't remember. She's a smart little cookie, that one!

Makayla took her first couple steps last night, not wanting to be outdone. She's also finally making some consonant sounds - ra ra ra and da da da, and the occasional ma ma ma. :)

And finally, I got a call from Mackenzie's ear, nose and throat doc this week. She had taken cultures from her ear the last time I took her in, because of the constant ear infections. We hadn't been able to stay off ear drops for more than 10 days at a time. Guess what? She didn't have bacteria in her ear. She had a yeast infection. In her ear. ?????? Have you ever heard of such a thing??? I actually had started suspecting that, when it got a whole lot worse the day AFTER I started giving her oral antibiotics this last time - antibiotics tend to make yeast worse. So my theory is that whenever I feed her pureed fruit - because that seems to be when it flares up - the sugar from the fruit feeds the yeast maybe, because it gets into her ear canal through her open palate??? Don't know. Anyway, she's not draining right now, but we're supposed to get some liquid Lamisil to use when it does. The doc had told me, when she took the culture, "I'll go ahead and check for yeast, but that's really rare." I should've known - we're a family of "really rare."