"It's No Fun Being Sick" (in the words of Noah.)

We had a fun night 2 nights ago when Noah came down with a bad ear ache. It started around 9:00, about an hour after we had put him to bed. He awoke crying, so I told him he could go lay down in our bed until he fell asleep. He cried for me to lay down with him, so I did, hoping that he would just fall asleep. Well let's just say, THAT didn't happen. He woke up about every 10-15 minutes throughout the night complaining that his ear hurt, followed by intermittent crying and whimpering. Poor guy. He didn't actually settle into a good sleep until about 5:00 a.m., which means neither did I. The only difference is that whereas he got to sleep in, I got to wake up at 7:00 and start homeschooling. I was able to take him in for a doctor's appointment at 11:30, where they confirmed that he did in fact have an ear infection. They prescribed him some pain drops and we were on our way. Well, prior to the appointment, I had called my midwives, who suggested placing a clove of garlic in the ear, as garlic is a natural antibiotic and is supposed to fight off the infection. I decided to give this a try last night, and cautioned the kids to play gently around Noah so as not to dislodge the garlic or, worse yet, push it into his ear canal. The kids were busily building marble runs in the living room (safe enough, I thought) while I went down in the garage to start a load of laundry. A few minutes later, Noah came down the stairs and stated, "Jacob kind of pushed me and my garlic is gone, but it's okay, it's in my ear. I can still feel it." Upon further inspection, I realized I could not even see the garlic, which meant that it had either fallen out or was so far in his ear that I would not be able to retrieve it (in which case I had already decided I would take him to the midwives opposed to the emergency room.) As it turns out, the boys had been playing around on our bed, and Forrest discovered the clove of garlic under our mattress pad, just in time to stop me from going prodding with the tweezers. Thank goodness. He slept well last night and has been asleep on the couch for most of the morning, waking only long enough to have some hot tea. At times like this I am so thankful to be homeschooling. I couldn't imagine the added stress of having to cart my kids back and forth to school. Staying home has worked out very well for us this week.