One thing that has been more challenging with Duplo than with Lego is his relatively poor health. Lego hardly got sick at all before his second birthday, but Duplo has had a string of eye infections, ear infections, colds, stomach bugs, and general health problems.
He had colic as an infant, but we found out that it was caused by acid reflux. Once he got on medication for the reflux, our very fussy baby turned into a little angel. So that was great.
Another problem he had as a baby was that the tiny drainage duct that runs from the eyes down into the nose didn’t open like it’s supposed to. This caused tears to build up in his eyes, causing infections and crusties in his eyes even when there was no infection. When he was six months old, an ophthalmologist recommended a minor surgery (but he would be sedated during it!) to open the duct, but I decided to wait until he was a year old. I had read that if the duct hadn’t opened by then, it wouldn’t, so I wanted to give it more time before spending a whole bunch of money. Luckily, the duct did open on its own, but not until he was eleven months old. Our poor baby had yellow, crusty, goopy, teary eyes for almost the whole first year of his life.
Also, it seemed that every time he went to the doctor, whether I suspected an ear infection or not, he had one. But it was never easy for the doctor to spot it—apparently one of the lovely things I’ve passed on to my children is an abundance of ear wax that was constantly blocking the view. So the nurses would have to clean it out before the doctor could look in his ears, and Duplo hated that. All six or seven times he had to endure it. Now he kind of has a phobia of people poking at or looking in his ears.
He hasn’t had a cold or any other disease in at least two or three weeks, though. Maybe we’re done with that sort of thing for the summer. I hope.
