Nurse Maid's Elbow and Clogged Tear Ducts

May was a tough month for little pumpkin!  Around Stanley's birthday, we went over to mom and dad's for dinner.  When we were getting ready to leave, Brett reached down to pick up Jacob, and when he put him in his arms, Jacob started WAILING!  Literally, he was crying like he was in major pain.  We could not figure out what had happened, because both of us had been right there and seen nothing happen out of the ordinary.  On the way home, he just wimpered and wouldn't pick up his juice with his left hand.  When we got to our house, we decided to let him play outside for a second to see if he would use his left arm to play with his push toy.  Nope.  He just cried and reached up with his good arm to Brett.  By this point, I'm like DANG IT!  We are going to have to go to the hospital and I don't even understand what just happened !!!!! :)

We got there, and they looked at it, and said that it was "nurse maid's elbow".  Translation:  his elbow had popped out of socket.  Luckily, by the time the doctor had gotten in there, Jacob's had gone back into place, so they did not have to manually do it.  That process is apparently very painful and we were super happy to avoid that!  Little man was not too sure about his sling, but the Dr. told us to just try to keep it still for the next couple of days.

He also warned us that it isn't a good idea to swing kiddos around by their arms or pick them up by just their legs when playing.  We sure didn't do it that time, but thinking back, Brett and Jacob probably had played that way in the past.  After that, I have to (awkwardly) say to random people who pick Jacob up by his arms that his elbow has popped out before, and the Dr. said it is much more likely to happen again.  I look like a helicopter mom, but it was painful for Jacob and the $400 hospital bill was too! :)

Later in May, little man had to pay a visit to a pediatric ear, nose, and throat specialist.  For his first year, one of his little eyes had a very difficult time draining.  We rubbed it (and made him super mad), but it just didn't seem like it was getting better.  Every time he would get a cold, his little eyes would get red and infected because they couldn't drain.  The Dr. said that his was not blocked, but that it was very narrow and that he could possibly grow out of it by 2 or 2.5.  He did, and we were sooooo glad we waited a sec before doing surgery!