For the first time in 3 months I’ve arrived 10 minutes earlier and hopefully I’ll be leaving with the rest of the girls too. Dropping and picking up Hassan from nursery everyday made me late to work. Yesterday was his last day until he joins back in September. It was so hard for me to leave the house with a toddler crying and screaming, not wanting to get out of bed and get changed lol. I’m still not relaxed because yesterday after he came back he was not feeling right. He had a fever and an earache.

On Sunday I took him to Dar Al Shifa and the ENT doctor there told me that his ears were fine. He didn’t remove the wax maybe he didn’t feel like it, or he was too scared. Well guess what? Last night I took him to another ENT doctor in Sallam Hospital and I was told his ears were all red and infected AGAIN. He took out balls of wax from both his ears, one was black and another was orange. He’s been having Otitis Media since he was little, which is all weird. I’ve always fed my son the correct way and held him in the right feeding position, plus I was breastfeeding him until he turned 3months. He weaned himself off the bottle all on his own before his 2nd b-day. And back in May we got rid of his pacifier too. And still, he’s getting this over and over again.

Research says kids are prone to such recurrent ear infections because of wrong bottle feeding positions and long term pacifier use. Well, with my kid that’s not the case. I believe he has an allergy and probably this is the cause for his repeated ear infections, though I’m not so sure I can confirm this. Anyways, ENT doctor put him on antibiotic shots for 5 days. His fever went down after his 1st shot, nose got unblocked and cough actually sounds better. Everyone who knows me knows I hate antibiotics but yesterday I gave in because this is different, he’s been having one day fevers for the past month. I’m guessing because infection is left untreated. Inshallah he’ll grow out this phase.

All I wanted was nap. Just 10-15min nap, it would do wonders for me but I didn’t get one. Hassan came up to my ears and started singing ”good morning to you!”

He’s ill again. This time he has an ear infection with a high grade fever reaching 39.8 degrees.

Words he would say when he’s ill:

Batan awar - feeling sick, as in wanting to throw up

Bardan - he’s feeling really cold

Athoon doodo, athoon kharban - earache

Fee kaka - sorry to mention this one here. He’d say this if he’s really annoyed

Reehat basal - smell of onions

Abee anam - I want to go to sleep

Other words he would say when he’s not ill: puppy, elephant and turtle.

Starting from this month I’ve changed my son’s nursery because I didn’t feel he liked it there and I don’t think he learned anything.

Signs:

- he was so cranky when he came back home

- he didn’t want to go there the next day

- they lost his pics and I got pissed. I refused to bring anymore pics

- he was ill almost every week, actually from day one he got himself a cold

- one day he came back home with a bruise on his cheek, he was bit by a girl!

- his teacher couldn’t even spell his name right

- his teacher gave him candies

- his teacher seemed clueless on how to control her class

- his teacher would call one of the kids with a girl’s nickname, I felt so offended

I think the nickname was enough to make me want to drop him out asap.

When I’m crossing the road I make sure to cross first and on my side is who ever’s holding hassan for me just in case any of the cars don’t slam on their breaks on time I’d be the first to get hit.

I had to punish hassan when he broke (on purpose) a new vase I bought recently. It pissed me off so much that he was doing that to piss me off.

He kicked and screamed as I picked him up to put him on the sofa as part of his punishment but before I could put him down, I slipped, he fell from my arms and he hit the back of his head on the back of the sofa.

I felt guilty the rest of the day. Thanks to Allah no harm was done.

1. I’m taking care of Hassan.

(P.s. Four days ago he fell ill with a cough, a sudden fever the next day and finally a runny nose)

Or …

2. I’m ill.