After a good, long run, our ten year old’s nervous tics came back this spring. Once again, he’s been experiencing involuntary blinking and has also been wrinkling his forehead. I don’t think it’s all that apparent to casual acquaintances, but it’s incredibly obvious to us.

It’s hard to say exactly what (if anything) triggered it this time around. While his tics have been stress-induced in the past, his last bout occurred in the absence of any apparent stressors. Moreover, he hasn’t experienced anything particularly stressful in recent weeks.

The only thing that I can think of is that his tics re-emerged right around the time of his spring buzz cut. Perhaps that sort of change to his appearance made him feel a bit self-conscious? That doesn’t seem particularly likely, as he actually likes having his hair buzzed. More than likely, that was just a coincidence.

As before, we’ve gone out of our way not to draw any attention to it. Rather, we’re assuming that it will just go away on its own as it always has in the past.

Well, it’s been one week since our six year old had his tonsils and adenoids out. All in all, things have gone smoothly, though there have been some bumps in the road.

First and foremost, the Lortab that he was taking to control the pain made him nauseated. While nausea is among the last things that you want when recovering from throat surgery, there’s a fine line between controlling the pain and throwing up. Unfortunately, he crossed that line on Saturday and we ended up backing him down to just Tylenol during the day with Lortab being reserved for bedtime (we were told to avoid ibuprofen).

The other bump in the road came very early on Day Six. We were told that his ear pain would be the worst on Day Six, and they weren’t kidding. We were awoken between 1:00-2:00 AM by a little guy with extreme ear pain. Unfortunately, he was so uncomfortable (and so out of it) that he refused to take any medicine. After a few minutes of cajoling, we finally got the medicine down his throat and got him settled back down. The balance of the day was filled with a good bit of discomfort. The good news is that today (the morning of Day Seven) he reports that his ears are feeling “good.”

Hopefully the worst is behind us. He’s still out of school, and we’re not sending him back until Monday. The earliest the doctor said he could possibly return is tomorrow but, since the next few days are critical for his healing, we decided to hold him out Thursday and Friday and give him the weekend to recover more fully.

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Our six year old had his tonsils and adenoids taken out yesterday. And guess what? Today he’s not a happy camper… [more]