6 Weeks!

Baby Callan was 6 weeks old yesterday! I'm so happy with his growth and progress and I am loving the fact that I have gotten to enjoy such a long "newborn" stage. A week ago he weighed 6 lbs 6 oz so he's probably around 7 lbs now. He is such a good baby and is so much fun. He has on and off nights with sleeping, but overall I think he's getting better and better.

{laugh}

We are very grateful that he is able to receive a Synagis shot every month and will be getting his second one on Friday. Synagis is a medication that protects him from getting RSV. It is similar to vaccine, but with a vaccine they inject the inactive virus so that your body will start producing antibodies to fight that virus so it will be prepared if you get it. With this, they actually inject the antibodies so his body won't even have to make them. If he was introduced to RSV his body will be able to start fighting it off before it even affects him. The antibodies will eventually die which is why he has to get a shot every month and the shots cost $1500.00 each. Which is nothing when you've met your out of pocket maximum on your insurance by the end of January:)

Speaking of which, in case you're trying to decide if you need insurance or not (because we've been in that boat before), Callan's medical bills have amounted to around $100,000.00.

THANK HEAVENS FOR OUR INSURANCE!

We have been blessed to have to pay only $2,000.00 of that amount. Before Tyson's parathyroid issues and surgery we didn't have insurance for about a 6 month period of time. Thankfully nothing happened to us during that time, but we had a strong feeling that we should sign up for insurance again and just sacrifice a little in order to afford it. The day our insurance started, January 1st, was the day he passed out while ice fishing as a result of his hypercalcemia. We felt so blessed at that time to have made the decision to get insurance even though neither of us had any health issues prior to that! And we feel the same way now. Tyson changed jobs in August in order to get more hours and therefore lower our premiums for better insurance. Little did we know we would have this little bundle of joy who needed so much extra care!

That was a detour - back to Synagis. The pediatrician said that in the 14 years he's been giving Synagis he's only had one baby get RSV. So that is great news. If you're like me you're probably thinking, why in the world have I never heard of this before and why can't my kid get it! It's a little ridiculous if you ask me. There are apparently very strict rules on who can receive the shot. They told me you can only get it if you are born under 32 weeks gestation or born under 34 weeks with a sibling under 5. I asked because I wanted Easton to get it too, but he doesn't qualify. It makes me so mad because I have friends and relatives whose kids have been barely hangin on with RSV. I don't understand why this shot can't be more widely available! It doesn't

make sense. Anyway...

We're so glad Callan is healthy. He doesn't even spit up. The only thing wrong with him is he has an umbilical hernia. He just got it this week so I haven't even shown the doctor yet, but I know that's what it is because Easton had one too. (Which is weird because they're not hereditary.) It's when part of the intestine pokes into the belly button. It's really gross because you can push on it and feel the intestine squeeze back into the stomach but it pops right back out when you let go. Anyway, these are fairly common and usually go away by themselves within a year. You can see it in this picture.

Happy healthy boys!

Our Comedian

In case you haven't noticed by now,

Easton is SO funny!

He cracks me up every day with his smart comments. I know I have portrayed him as quite the little monster lately (which he is:) but he still makes me laugh and I can't get enough of him. He can count to 10 and sing the alphabet and Cougar fight song all by himself. In case you're ever needing a laugh, he also knows all the words to Whiskey Lullaby and Friends in Low Places courtesy of his dad (including the words cigarette and champaign which make me cringe and laugh hysterically at the same time.)

Just look at this face. During the week when he wakes up I usually put him in front of the TV and try to go back to sleep for a half hour or so. When I get up he is almost always wearing:

This hat...

these boots... (and they're boots NOT shoes)

and either socks or gloves on his hands.

Sometimes this get-up means he's a pirate, sometimes he's a hunter, and sometimes he's a "fighter fighter" (fire fighter). But no matter what he is, he's cute.

He really struggles with the the words "to" and "for". Any time you would use the word "for"he uses the word "to". ie:

"Mom, are you looking to me?"

"I got a cookie to you."

I'll tell Easton to say, "I got this for you." And he'll repeat back, "I got this to you." We've gone over and over it and it feels like My Fair Lady. The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plains:)

The other day when he woke up from his nap he was a little incoherent and was stuttering. He couldn't get his words out in a way that made sense so he just stopped in mid-sentence and said, "I have no words."

Yesterday we went to a movie and I told him to stay right by me so no one takes him. He said,

"Someone will take me mom?"

"I don't know, they might."

"And I will have no life?"

Where does he get these things???

On the way home from the movie he was spitting at Collette the whole drive and after asking him to stop over and over I said, "Easton I'm going to pull this car over and slap your hand if you do that again!" He put on his snottiest voice and said, "It's a Jeep mom not a car."

He's very particular (borderline OCD if you ask me) about everything from the seam on the toe of his sock being crooked to telling me who I can and can't talk to. This picture was taken from my cell phone while he was asleep in the car. He's not really this deathly yellow color, but it gets the point across. *Note - it was 60 degrees outside.

WE LOVE HIM!

Word to the Wise...

To my friends who are expecting their second child (especially you Jana:) here's some advice:

DON'T EVER TAKE BOTH KIDS GROCERY SHOPPING EVER!

It is so not worth whatever food you thought you needed. I would rather starve than experience that again. The whole reason I planned to go grocery shopping was so that Easton could fall asleep on the way home. He didn't have a nap yesterday and I knew I could not handle that again. He usually naps at noon so I planned to leave by 11. By the time I got us all ready it was 12:30. I pretty much knew I was heading for disaster. Easton has been having an extremely hard time obeying lately (which is strange because he also has a new obsession with this book about obeying-we read it several times a day but apparently he's not understanding:) On the way out to the jeep I asked Easton to stop running around the yard and be careful not to step in a huge, muddy, puddle full of horse crap. So what did he do? Ran right over to it jumped in. Splashed up to his knees. I left Callan in the car, took Easton back inside where he tracked mud everywhere. I changed his outfit and we left for the store. It took an hour and a half to get $50 worth of groceries. You should have seen the number of "can't you control your child?" looks I got in that time. I thought I had it all planned out. Callan's carseat would go in the front of the cart and Easton would sit in the back and hold the food. Well Callan's carseat didn't fit in the front so he took up the entire back of the cart and Easton had to walk - aka run circles around the entire store destroying everything in his path. He knocked down a huge cardboard display, threw every toy or candy bar he could find into the cart, tried to play tag with an employee, and threw a can of soup into the back of the cart ON TO THE BABY because he insisted that dad needed it. We saw an obese man and Easton yelled, "Mom look at that huge guy!" We saw a Muslim lady and he yelled, "Mom look at that lady's hat!" I could not wait to get out of that store and home to my bed! I just had to stop at the bank and then I was home free. Now some advice to all the bank tellers out there:

DON'T ASK A PARENT IF THEIR KID CAN HAVE A SUCKER IF THE KID CAN HEAR YOU!

He ate his sucker the whole way home. Obviously he did not fall asleep. He was sticky from head to toe. I got him out of the car and asked him to go straight inside and don't play on the ice. I went to get Callan and heard him slip on the ice, slap against the driveway, and start bawling. I can't say I felt too sorry for the disobedient little stinker. (By the way it's not like I put him in the path of the ice - he had to make a deliberate detour to get there.) He wasn't hurt. He was just mad that his pants were "soaking wet." We came inside and I got him all ready for his nap on his bed. I told him I was going to go get the groceries and he needed to close his eyes and have a rest. When I came back with the groceries he was screaming and his room was 100% trashed. He had thrown everything within his reach (which is a lot when he stands on his bed.) After a major tantrum and me realizing I wasn't going to get any sleep after a long night up with the baby, I decided to rock him to sleep. I tried to sing him some primary songs. I started out with "As I have loved you.." and got the usual bossy remark "Not that song! I want 'We have been born as Nephi a bold!" So that's what I sang. Over and over and over.

Yes, sometimes I blog to cope with daily life. But oh, the memories we're making.

Now I have twenty minutes to feed the baby and wake Easton up from his precious sleep so I can go to the doctor and hold my second-born's hand while he gets cut off! It's a cruel world we live in.