The Year

Best ever. 

Penultimate

I'm sitting here watching Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve and have no idea who two-thirds of the performers are. I resolve to be more hip in 2012. And to not be home watching this show on the eve of 2013.

Until then, I'll try to think of something more profound to say in my last blog post of this year. 

Quantity

In order to successfully complete this blogging challenge I need to publish eight posts today. That's not going to happen. In order to hit 100 posts for 2011 I need to publish three posts today. That's so going to happen.

And this counts as one!

Blessed

We made it to Helena with only a peep on the plane from our exhausted babe. Then we proceeded to have a food and laughter filled holiday. Three more days with family here in mountain country. Happy, happy.

The Travel

Today we are off to Montana! I couldn't be more excited. That's not true. I could be more excited if Sam had slept at all today. This may be our most interesting flight yet. Wish us luck!

Piece of Pecan Pie

Three or four times a day Sam crawls over to the entertainment center, pulls himself up and requests music by clicking his tongue, putting his fingers together as if snapping and shaking his head. When we oblige, he is overjoyed and shakes his little booty away. Please witness:

The Bezoar

I finally convinced Dave to look in my ear. And boy was it interesting.

There seems to be what he described as a "bezoar" hanging out in my ear canal. Now, it's not really a bezoar in my ear because, having Googled the word, I know that a bezoar is a ball of swallowed foreign material. I don't know a lot about anatomy, but I'm pretty sure anything I swallow should not end up in my ear. Still, bezoar is a good visual for what I have going on. It's also a great word.

Further research on the internets has revealed that a more appropriate term for this mass is cerumen impaction. Here's a definition:

We say that cerumen is impacted when it has built up in the ear canal to such a point that there may be signs that something is not quite right. It is important to note that, ideally, ears might never need cleaning—they are designed to clean themselves. Impaction often happens when people use items like cotton swabs or bobby pins to try to clean their ears. This only pushes the earwax farther into the ears and can also cause injury to the ear.

Yep. That sounds about right. I am guilty of trying to clean this ear with a cotton swab because, well, there were signs that something was not quite right. Apparently that was a bad idea. Question: Why do they make cotton swabs if they are not supposed to go in your ears? This can't be my fault alone.

So now I'm banned from using Q-tips and have to put drops in my ear to try to break up the bezoar. If that doesn't work, Dr. Dave is going to try to gently rinse out the mass with a nasal aspirator. And if that doesn't work, he's going to try to dig out the clump with some tool I'm pretty sure he's not medically trained to use. He can put in a central line, but he's never had to perform an earwax extraction. He tells me he'll watch a video first. That's reassuring.

La Lumière

We finally decorated the tree. Dave went overboard on the lights, but we got this great shot of Sam after he recovered from being blind.