What's with the ear?

Just realized I haven't written since the summer.  Youzer the time really flies.  Some thoughts are short enough for a quick Facebook post but most of the time I have quite a bit to say but no time to type it up.  I will try to focus more on my blogging than Facebook.  It ends up on my page anyways!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A few days ago Mitchell started pulling on his ears a little more than normal.  He was banging his head at school and at home and crying.  One time even holding the side of his head saying "pain".  Huge steps obviously in the speech department but then he turns around quickly and we do not find the source of his frustration and pain.

About an hour ago he was trying to stick my finger in his ear and giggling once again with no other indication of the true problem.   Steve suggests we get the flashlight and really look into his ears.  Left ear looks alright but the right ear has what looks like popcorn in it!  We eat popcorn all the time but I cannot pinpoint when we had it last.

Steve is at the urgent care with him right now.  Just texted to say it was crumpled paper, not popcorn, and the ear is slightly infected so giving him antibiotics.  AND he did awesome with the Dr.  Always so exciting here.

Reminded me of the time Steven decided at the age of  6 or so that it was a good idea to pick up a piece of packaging styrofoam and jam it in his ear.  When we asked why he said "I don't know just felt like it."  Something with my boys and their ears.

Great Progress

Mitchell has really made a leap in communication in the last couple of weeks. It is great to see how his skills transfer from therapy/school to home and can be used in different context. I have been told by therapists he knows sight words and animals and we know he can identify & write letters and numbers but I couldn't figure out if he knew the meaning or just had them memorized. He has proven recently he's got it all! A couple weeks ago he showed me on his Dynavox Maestro that he can identify animals if given their sound or name and scroll through pages to find them too. This also transferred over to flash cards a couple days later. A few days ago he was using a story App on the iPad and was able to pick out letters when I asked him even tho they were out of order & mixed upper & lower case. He said puppy when he touched a dog's face on Tuesday, "I'm two" when Caroline was trying get Grace to repeat it and mimicked Aunt Maureen yesterday when she called him a stinkbutt. This morning we were looking through a flap book when he verbally labeled girl, pig & chicken without being prompted to do so. These are major accomplishments for Mitchell and really proves our therapy program is working. I am so proud of all his hard work over the past 3 1/2 yrs. I always assume Mitchell will be living with us forever but Steve thinks maybe not, alot can happen in the next 15-20 yrs. Look at how far he has come in under 4. He sure is an amazing little boy!