Yea! The Baby Has an Ear Infection!

I know it sounds odd that I would sound happy that the baby has an ear infection, but let me put it in perspective for you. I'm not at all happy that he's not feeling well, but when you have one child with an ASD (autism spectrum disorder), you watch your others like a hawk for any early signs that they, too, might have an ASD.

So when the baby started to refuse any care from anyone but me like his oldest sister did, started crying at the sight of anyone else but me like his sister with the ASD did as an infant, started to show signs of regression by absolutely refusing to eat "solid" baby food and screamed at the sight of the spoon, you can see where I would start to get a bit worried. He also stopped rolling over on the floor, but instead just laid there looking around, and after a few minutes he would fuss and cry for me. I was actually relieved when he started to run a fever and would pull off screaming from nursing. I thought, "Aha! Teething or ears!" I was relieved when yesterday the doctor confirmed that he has an ear infection.

The one thing that does concern me greatly, however, is that like his oldest sister, he became very cranky days before he had any other symptoms. Prior to this ear infection, he had no cold symptoms or anything else. S. F. always becomes a beast days before she shows any symptom of an illness. If G. and I look at each other after a few days of absolute, total frustration with her, and start saying things to each other like, "Has she been driving you as crazy as she has been me?" or "Have you been fantasizing about sending S. F. off to boarding school?" or "Gee, I can't wait until she's in college," we then know that she's going to be sick soon. Our NT (neurotypical) child, S. D. just gets sick. She might get cranky the day before she gets sick, but not 3 - 5 days beforehand.

So, I'm still watching him like a hawk, and toying with the idea of scheduling him for an evaluation with our developmental pediatrician at 15 or 16 months. But for now, I'm happy that he's letting me put him down again, playing with toys, rolling over, smiling at Daddy, and letting Daddy hold him occasionally, without screaming, now that the antibiotics are starting to work.