My last piece I wrote, I talked about the hardships (and silver lining) of nonverbal Autism.

And then, the next day, little man got sent home from school. He was just not acting himself. Irritable, tired, sad, coughing.
A completely different kiddo than I had dropped off at school that morning. 👀

This mama rushed right to school. And my sweet boy looked miserable.
Gosh, that just crushes me.

A couple phone calls and a masked, anxious, tearful appointment later, an ear infection diagnosis was delivered. Our boy was battling in an ear infection and we had no way of knowing.

There was no fever.
No ear pulling.
Nothing, until that afternoon. And as a parent, that is such a horrible feeling. To feel like you missed it. Like it was supposed to be right in your face, and you looked right past it.

And now, the 10 day medication challenge begins. The wrestling. The chasing. The bribing. The tears. The frustration.
All because my sweet boy doesn’t understand that we are simply doing this to HELP. To make that pesky ear infection be a thing of the past.

All he sees is something new, and confusing, and gross tasting, and “forceful”. No choice in it for him.

And all we want to do is make the pain go away.

I wish his little body could just wave a little white flag for us, so we could catch these things at the start. I keep telling myself that hopefully we have. But we don’t get the satisfaction of ever knowing.

So some may look at this photo like it’s contradictory. But let me tell you, on even our HARDEST days as a family, we know just how blessed we are.

We may all be tired. We may be frustrated at times, or confused or concerned even. But blessed is always at the very top of that list.