Curing ear infections by waiting & seeing

From babycenter.com news, it seems many cases of ear infections actually cure themselves over the course of a few days without the use of antibiotics.

This was also the response of the doctor we visited in the Netherlands when Peanut got her ear infection during the last days of our vacation. Our local Texas pediatrician would have been willing to also wait & see for a few days if Peanut had been a bit older when she got her first ear infection just shy of her one year birthday.

Wanna pay less for your cable TV & Internet? Just ask!

You have to love being a customer in the US.

You aren't always treated like royalty, but most smart companies would rather keep you than lose you.

I just had our current cable TV and Internet provider (Time Warner Cable) lower our monthly bill by $20 without lowering any levels of service.

It just took a quick call to customer service to ask if they could offer us anything to entice to keep from switching to their competition, Verizon.

"No problem, I can help you with that!"

Carnival in Coppell!

This past weekend, the St. Ann's Catholic Church in Coppell filled its front parking lot with carnival rides, foods and arts& crafts.

We took Peanut one evening not so much for the rides, but just to see the action, lights and people. And, interesting carnival people were there. The rides half of the event was run by a professional group who evidently go from event-to-event with their rather junky looking equipment and charge outrageous carnival prices (like $5 for funnel cake with powdered sugar!! from a mix!!! I saw the mix on the counter - they just add water!!!).

That all aside, it was a really nice atmosphere. It made me happy to live in a city that hold such events attended by families with children in strollers, toddler shoes and baseball caps. Pre-teen/teens also were there sitting in circles, chatting on mobile phones and standing in line for the wilder rides. All of it feeling very wholesome, safe and cozy.

A special tent for smaller carnival goers reminded me of my own elementary school fall fairs. The games where everyone is always a winner of some small trinket: Go Fish, Bean Bag Toss, Picking Plastic Ducks.

Peanut really enjoyed the open-air performance area and clapped along with the clubby music of young boys dancing like their favorite pop stars.

FIRE -- ants!

Poor Peanut got bitten by several fire ants yesterday in our backyard.

The recent rains (it has hardly rained since early Spring here) evidently brought out the little biters usually hidden far underground.

The last time I saw a fire ant mound in our backyard was late April and had forgotten all about them. Peanut & I were out barefoot; I was surverying the damage to our backyard cloth gazebo when Peanut came over to grab my hand. Looking down, I saw her right leg covered in little black ants and immediately knew they were fire ants. About the same time, I felt a little sting on my own leg.

We got the ants off of Peanut very quickly and her papa took her inside to run cold water over the bites while I hit the Internet to see what else we should do. I know some people have very severe reactions so we watched her closely for the next 10 mins. Fortunately, she remained calm and normal, not even really in any pain.

I applied some hydrocortison cream to the bites to help ward off the itch and inflammation.

This morning the bites had developed into raised bumps with white pustles surrounded by red skin. Still Peanut didn't bother with them, but I put her in loose pants anyway to cover them up so she wouldn't get curious. (The picture is not of Peanut).