12 month check up

about 2 weeks ago i had to take talan into the dr. because his cough had become even worse than normal. the dr. prescribed a new breathing treatment medicine and also gave us a prescription for claritin and a steroid that we needed to fill only if the cough didn't get better in a few days.
she looked in his ears and said they looked good but said his nose was a mess. several days later he was one big ball of snot. so i just figured it was a bad cold and the cough started before the snot did.
then, last week, hayden came down with a cough and then a fever. at one point we got a reading of 106. i figured he just got what talan had only a little worse. he ended up feeling better by sunday and on monday he went to school.
then yesterday happened. talan was going in at 9:10am for his 1 year check-up. hayden had gotten himself dressed and was playing downstairs. when i called him up so he could get his coat on and get ready for the bus he started complaining that his ear hurt. the nite before he was telling me his head hurt. so i started wondering if the fever was the first sign of an ear infection. he was crying, which he's NEVER done with an ear infection, so i called the dr. to see if they could squeeze him in as well. thankfully they could so i ran out to tell the bus driver he wouldn't be going to school, we packed up and headed out.
the dr. looked in hayden's ears first and said the one ear had a HORRIBLE ear infection. i have to start remembering this with hayden...super high fever usually means an ear infection a few days later.
she gave us a prescription for some medicine and then gave him some motrin since the pain was so bad. then he sat while talan was check out.
she looked in talan's ears and said that his didn't look 100% either. so she wrote him out a prescription as well. at this point, if either one of the boys gets another ear infection...especially if they get one during the summer...we'll have to start looking into getting tubes since they've had several within the past few months. hayden only had 1 in his first 4 years and then last year he had several.
she check out the rest of talan and said that he looked really good. he weighed in at 20 pounds 14 ounces...at his nine month check up he weighed 20 pounds 1 ounce....which put him in the 10-25%. he measured in at 30.5 inches which put him in the 75%. she said they call it the toddler drop where they start getting active and stop gaining weight. she said they aren't worried since he is growing lengthwise.
talk about polar opposite children though. hayden was at one point 95% weight but only 10-15% height. different in every way, those two.
we are going to be in the process of switching talan over from his formula to milk. he doesn't seem to like it, so we'll first start by giving him his formula in a sippy cup. then we'll start gradually adding milk to it until it's just milk.
we have to go back in to see the dr. in 2 weeks so she can check his ears and make sure they cleared up. due to our horrible deductible, she put the boys on amoxicilin since it's free at meijer. if that doesn't work we'll have to go get the over $100 medication for BOTH of them!!! so here's hoping the free antibiotics work!
so other than the ear infection, talan is strong and doing well. now we'll just work on the milk and walking thing!