Claire's not sick, yay

I've been watching Claire since we got back from our trip. She's been acting a little strange. One day she was way drooly, the next day she stuck her tongue out all day, the next day she was pulling on her ears, so I was concerned. She's been a little more fussy than usual and sleeping more than normal (not that I haven't enjoyed that part!). So today I took her to the doctor. She needed her second H1N1 flu shot anyway, so I figured either way it wasn't a wasted trip. The doctor looked at her ears and they are clear. Looked at her mouth/ throat- nothing. So she said she is probably just teething. Even though nothing looks ready to pop out yet, it may be shifting around inside her jaws and it is referring pain to her ears and head. But no ear infection, which was my major worry. I didn't want to have to deal with an ear infection every time we travel, since last time she had one it was when we got back from Phoenix. And teething makes just as much sense. She is chewing on her fingers a lot and her sippy cup and just about everything. So maybe, some day, we will have teeth.

The doctor was amazed that Claire is already walking. Since we have baby 2 on the way, I'm not sad that she will be an experienced walker before he/she makes their appearance. I'm sure it will be easier that way. And really, she is so much easier to contain when she walks, because she doesn't go very fast. It's kind of funny actually. It takes her ten minutes to cross our living room, and it isn't a big room. The doc also encouraged me to take away the binkie a few months before baby is born, so that Claire is less confused and likely to regress. Which I was planning on doing anyway. I figure once we get back from our Christmas trip, we will make the binkie a crib only thing, and then go from there. The doc suggested I snip the tips, but I really don't want to buy new ones. (That's the thrifty in me speaking. It's a perfectly good item, I don't want to ruin it just so I can buy a new one.) I'm still thinking about either just going cold turkey around her birthday or phasing it out to just bedtime, and then not at all. I'm fairly confident she can go cold turkey. Half the time, she doesn't have the binkie in her mouth anyway when she is sleeping. Or maybe we will just cut one and keep the other one (since we only have two in the bigger size) for baby 2. Or I have some other ones that she doesn't like. I guess I could try just giving her those and let her make her own choice. Though she might just transfer to them and then I wouldn't be any closer to getting rid of it. So I don't know. Any ideas?

The doctor also said something a little more interesting. She said Claire has a heart murmur. Basically, a heart murmur is any time the doctor hears something other than "lub dub" when they listen to the heart. There are two kinds- the functional problem kind and the "innocent" or physiologic (I think) kind. She said she is pretty sure that it is the second, totally common, totally un-problematic kind. She said that a baby's heart is closer to the chest wall than an adult's, so especially if the heart is growing and the chest isn't, it can either rub against the wall or you can hear the blood flow to the heart because it is pressed against the wall, making extra noise. She has never heard it before, the other doctor we have seen hasn't heard it, and the doctor in the hospital didn't hear anything, so she is confidant that is what it is. Usually if it is the other kind, someone along the way will hear it or there are other symptoms. So she said that we will just listen to it any time she comes in and make sure that it goes away. And she wanted me to be aware of it in case we went to the urgent care for some reason and they told me about it. She didn't want me to freak out.

So that's the end of my story. All that mama worry for no reason.