Otitis Media and Opie Taylor at 2:28A.M.

It's trying to be spring here in Louisville, and along with that comes trouble for allergy-sufferers. We believe that Luke struggles with allergies due to living in the Ohio Valley, and he has been on 2 different types of allergy medication for several months now. The worst side-effect of the allergies is that he has developed an ear infection (otitis media) eight times now, due to the drainage. Last weekend was stormy and REALLY muggy. These pictures demonstrate what the humidity does to his hair (and after I brush through it. :-) He's had a pretty bad runny nose since Saturday and I have been praying that his ear(s) wouldn't get infected, but I believe they finally have. Last night he woke up several times. At 2:00A.M., he woke up feverish and really thirsty. I gave him a drink and some more nasal decongestant, and we sat in our favorite rocker. AG was on TV Land. It was Episode #161 - Opie's Job (I had to look that up. I did NOT know that trivia.) I gotta tell ya, this episode is a real tear jerker at the end. Here is a summary that I found on this episode guide.

"Opie competes with Billy Crenshaw for a job as a box boy at Foley's Market, and after a weeklong trial, wins the position. Opie learns Billy wanted the job to help pay family medical bills, so he cleverly gets himself fired by telling Foley he'd rather be playing baseball. When Andy finds out secondhand that Opie didn't want to work he scolds him and then, hearing his explanation, realizes his son has become a man."

When Opie tells Andy the real reason why he got himself fired, I could just feel his horror at his peer's hardtimes compared to his comfortable life and frivolous motivation to buy a new bike. Ron Howard was such an incredible child actor. He made me CRY (Hush up, all you old friends of mine. I don't cry as easily as I used to. Alas, I have been hardened by life.) So, there we were at 2:28A.M. I was blubbering like a fool and Luke had a feverish, deer-in-the-headlights look on his face. Poor thing.

I just thought I'd throw these two pictures in with this post. Luke wanted me to put stickers all over his face. His current obsession is stickers and lotion (he eats it).