Ear ache... and I need to hear better

Yesterday I woke up at 5am because of a sharp pain in my right ear, just four hours after I went to bed. My nose has been congested for the last few days. I thought it was my sinus, if not allergies, acting up, as does happen now and turn.

But no matter how hard I blew my nose, or tried to breathe out from my mouth, or take big yawns voluntarily or involuntarily, the pressure that initially felt like the kind built up in our ears when you're high up in the air, just would not go away.

Hours later, after my second dose of over-the-counter nasal decongestant and painkiller, the throbbing only got worse, and bad enough, it made me tear. I had to interrupt the husband to cut short his day on campus.

We ended up at the one and only clinic I've been to here, but only once to do a simple physical exam required by the insurance company. And that was at least an hour's drive there and back! I had tried to make an appointment at a nearby clinic, but it would not take me in as a new patient until the last day of the month. I didn't think I could wait that long!

As it turned out, it wasn't my Eustachian tube, but the ear canal itself. The doctor said it was curved, whereas my good ear's, the left one, was straight. It was an infection, and likely a combination of all that I thought had to do with my bad nose.

So then it was a good thing I went to the doctor's, for I could not have prescribed antibiotics for myself or known that I could triple the dosage of the over-the-counter painkiller just like that! Boy do I miss the convenience back home, of being able to pop into any clinic in the neighbourhood, and be doled out the medicine then and there without having to stop at a pharmacy to buy it separately.

It was an even better thing, that my Pa is visiting us this period, and we could just leave the two boys in his care while Vern took me to the clinic. Our boys got away with cream-puffs and icecream for lunch, instead of for dessert, to be taken after the main meal I'd hastily put together -- an all-in-1 porridge with meat, vegetables and egg that was one of the easiet lunches to prepare.

Of course there were several other things that our boys had got (or tried to get) away with, around Gong Gong. Like climbing over his head, and literally trying to prop themselves up on his shoulders, when I wasn't looking. And it didn't take Gong Gong long to realise what a handful Jon and Ben are.

He's been giving me a bit of a earful of that, but only because he's worried. How did you manage them on your own? How do you cope? Why are the boys ever brimming over with energy? Why don't they nap?

Boys are boys, we always say, and perhaps I use that too conveniently as an excuse -- if they aren't mischievous teetering toward rambunctious, then they are testing our limits to see how far "out of control" they can get.

As much as I'd love to tell my father and assure him that I have everything down pat, I don't. Some days I am up to my earlobes with my boys' own excuses, whining, and the worst of them all, their temper tantrums.

I can keep adding house-rules and rewards, but obedience doesn't come easy. And disciplining, or tough love, is even more challenging. What works for you, or not?

Like it or not, these are but part of the same package, of what makes parenthood such an adventure! And I'm on the learning curve of motherhood, a steep one, that comes with all kinds of aches. But compared to the long-lasting joys of being a parent, such aches are short-lived. And they do go away so much faster, than any antibiotics for ear infection that seems to be taking its own sweet time to soothe the physical pain right now.

I hope to hear better again very soon, because it's awful going around with a blocked ear and nose! Incidentally, I'm reading "God's Whisper in a Mother's Chaos", from our church library, that talks about finding ways to hear that still, small voice in the whirlwind of life, and especially that of a mother with young children, with real-life experiences from the author herself that I can identify with.

And that, I need -- to be able to tune in better to His whisper, whether or not I'm having a bad ear! For it's never through our own merit that we've made it thus far, but only by the grace of God.