well baby check

Brecken got his shots finally yesterday afternoon. He's up to 14 lbs, 7 oz. (10th percentile), 26.5 inches long (30th percentile), and his head was 43 cm. (50th percentile). Josh and I found a small lump in B's belly a couple weeks ago but didn't think much of it- but Jake felt it yesterday and called it something I can't remember, but basically it's a malformation of one of the stomach muscles, which he will most likely grow out of and it's nothing to worry about.

B LOVED playing with the paper on the exam table because it made tons and tons of noise! But he did not love his shots. He had a bath last night and when Josh took the band-aid off his leg, there was a lot of blood on it- so that one must have hurt an awful lot!! I gave him ibuprofen before bed though and not again, and he hasn't been whiny or anything, so that's good.

While in Chicago, B had peach baby food for dinner one night. A couple hours later, he was laying on our hotel bed and vomited like I've never seen a baby vomit before. It was not spit up, it was full out vomit. He puked about as much as a 4 year old would and it was very scary- he was choking on it since he was laying on his back, and thank the Lord we hadn't all gone to bed yet so we were awake for the whole thing. I had to scoop him up and turn him over and Josh was hitting his back to get it all out. It was so scary. We had to call the front desk and ask to get a whole new change of linens since it was all over the comforter, sheets, and pillowcases! So yesterday we asked about the peaches and Jake said not to give him any again until he's 2. He said the vomiting and diarrhea he had that night also, makes him think B's allergic to peaches so to wait until he's 2 again to try again.

We're getting quite the blizzard here- the interstate is all closed and so is the road from Saratoga to the interstate. Hopefully they won't close between Saratoga and Encampment, I don't want to get stuck here tonight!!!

something you don't see very often anymore

So I went to our local gas station today to buy a newspaper and saw something you don't see very often anymore: a guy standing outside the gas station, talking on the pay phone. I haven't seen that in years, now that almost everyone has a cell phone. I don't even know how much a call on a pay phone costs anymore!

We had a good trip to Chicago. Brecken did a great job traveling. He was asleep for his first airplane take-off so his ears were fine. He woke up later and liked looking at everything, including the thing in the seat pockets about what to do in case of emergency. He liked to "read" that. He was not asleep for landing, so his ears bothered him and he cried, but that was the only time. On the way home, he got to ride in his car seat because the plane wasn't full. He thought take-off was pretty fun- the plane started shaking and going fast and he grabbed his car seat and grinned. Then the pressure hit him and he didn't like that anymore!

My grandma's new assisted living place is very nice. She still gets a view of Lake Michigan, which was very important to her. And, her new apartment is 2 rooms instead of one like her old place, so her bed can be in a different room. It's actually two apartments, converted into one. It's very nice. We had lunch with her in her dining room the first day. I wasn't impressed with the food but Grandma was so as long as she's happy, that's all that counts. :) She had a wonderful time showing Brecken off to anyone who would look, which was most everyone!

Back to school tomorrow... It'll be a long haul until school gets out. We don't have any days off between now and then. And Josh was telling his mom what all we have to do every single weekend from now until then, and we're jam packed! Every weekend is booked with something or other! Hopefully that will make the time go fast.

a visit to the doctor

Brecken had his 6-month check-up yesterday. We get to the clinic and they said, "Your appointment was last week!" I said, "No, you specificallytold me the 14th!" She said, "Well if you come back tomorrow, we can probably squeeze you in." She wasn't going to let me see anyone, even after I told her I was pretty sure Brecken had an ear infection. So in walks Josh and goes, "We can't even see Dr. Noton today?" All of a sudden, the story changed and she goes, "I'll see what I can do." There was NOBODY in the waiting room and no cars in the parking lot, so it's not like they were busy. So we saw Dr. Noton. She checked Brecken's ears first, after I told her he hates laying down and he's been rubbing his right ear for the past couple days. Sure enough, I was right, he has an ear infection!! It's just a mild one though, so she didn't put him on antibiotics, intead she gave him a pretty heavy duty decongestant prescription. (Heavy duty price too- our share was $33!!) She's pretty sure it will clear up when his cold goes away, that's why she didn't give him antibiotics. I called my sister to tell her now that Ryan doesn't get ear infections now, he passed them on to Brecken. :) Anyway, since he's sick, she couldn't give him shots. We have to come back when B is well. I was going to take him next week when we get back from Chicago but Trish, a PA, is the only one in the office that week and I refuse to see her. She's an idiot. So we'll go on the 28th, when we can see Jake. They did weigh B though, and he gained almost another pound. He's up to14 pounds, 2 oz. Still in the 3-5th percentile. We measured him when we got home and he's 26.5 inches, and that's the 50-75th percentile. He's a long skinny guy. :) I looked up in my baby book how much I weighed at 6 months, and from what I can tell on the dot on the chart, he and I weigh about the exact same! I was about 2 inches shorter at that age though! I gave B his medicine at 7:00 and he ate and went to bed about 8:00. He wouldn't lay in his crib again, so I put him in his car seat in the crib and he fell right asleep. The medicine says it might make him sleepy, and I guess it does because he didn't wake up again until 4:00 to eat! Then I had to wake him up at 6:30 to get him dressed. The bottle says to give it to him every 6 hours as needed, and I only gave it to him the one time, so maybe it just made him feel enough better to relax and finally get a good night's rest! I told Josh this morning it was the best $33 I ever spent. :) So hopefully, he'll have a better day at Dana's today- he had a miserable day yesterday. Dana almost called me in the afternoon to come get him because he couldn't quit crying. I gave him medicine at 7:00 this morning so hopefully that will help a bit. He was still pretty stuffy, but I hope his ears feel better! He was smiling and laughing this morning so hopefully that's a good sign.

sick again!

So Sunday night, Brecken went to bed at 8:00. At 10:00 when Josh and I went to bed, Brecken had a cold. Somewhere between those two hours, it crept up on him! It was the strangest thing. The poor boy, he had a stuffy nose and couldn't breathe well, and a raw sounding voice. He didn't sleep any worse than usual, but when he did wake up, he'd cry in almost a panic because he couldn't breathe like he usually does.

Last night, he didn't sleep. I'm pretty sure he didn't sleep at ALL, because I don't remember sleeping any. I'm pretty sure I was up all night long- in fact, I lost count of how many times I got out of bed. I don't know why I bothered going back to bed at all. The poor kid just wouldn't sleep. And doesn't it figure- this morning he FINALLY fell into a good sleep, but at 6:00 a.m.!! How frustrating. I let him sleep until 6:45, then had to wake him up so he could eat before we left for Encampment. I didn't get him dressed though, I kept him in his jammies and threw his clothes into the diaper bag. I let the babysitter know that Josh could come get him if she needed him to but so far it seems to be going OK up there.

Josh's school had baby piglets born- the FFA is raising pigs and they had piglets a couple weeks ago. It was so nice outside yesterday, we took Brecken to see them. He loves the dogs and the cat so we thought he might love piggies, too. Only, he was NOT in the mood. The FFA teacher picked one up and it squealed and Brecken totally lost it. He cried SOOOO hard and wouldn't stop. So we took him home. We'll try again in a couple days, when he's feeling better. His ears must have been sensitive to sound last night because after we got home he was sitting on Josh's lap and Josh sneezed. Brecken cried and cried again. Granted, Josh's sneezes are NOT quiet, but Brecken's never had a problem with it before! Poor kid.

Brecken has his 6 month appointment tomorrow! That's right, he turned 6 months old on Sunday. MAN, time flies. I know I keep saying that, but really. I never expected it to go so fast! I saw a tiny little baby in the mall on Saturday and couldn't believe that mine was ever that small. Brecken no longer lays on his belly when you put him that way- he flips over right away. YAY!! I'm thinking it won't be TOO long before he figures out how to move. You can see it in his eyes, he really wants to run around with the kids at daycare but just doesn't quite know how yet. Once he does, we better watch out- this kid will be a mover!!

rolling

Brecken rolled over from his front to his belly yesterday, even though nobody saw it. I was in the kitchen and Josh put Brecken on his belly in the living room. He then turned to the couch to grab the remote control and when he turned around again, Brecken was on his back! He must not do it for an audience, because he has not done it again! But with that "trick" yesterday, that means he has now accomplished rolling both ways.

He is also spitting like a pro. Flabby lips and all. He thinks it is absolutely hilarious, of course, and it is, except for when he has something besides spit in his mouth! He gets funnier and funnier as the days go by. Yesterday morning, Josh was watching the news and not Brecken while he was in his jumperoo. So Brecken would do his fake cough until Josh looked over, and Brecken would just grin and laugh at him. As soon as Josh looked away again, the fake cough came back. What a goof.

We're off to Casper tomorrow to meet my family. My cousin's basketball team was playing at State Basketball this week, but got beat yesterday and today so they will not be playing tomorrow, like we all hoped. We'll all still get together for the day, however. My mom and dad have a wonderful GPS navigation system that talks to you and we are borrowing it when we go to Chicago next week. We will get it from them tomorrow and see if it navigates us back home. :)

a new trick

Brecken has discovered a new trick. He is now aware of when he has a bunch of slobber in his mouth and if he is laying on his back, he gargles it. If he's upright, he blows raspberries. He thinks he's pretty funny. What IS funny though is when he has cereal in his mouth and blows- the fact that he's blowing it out isn't funny, but his precious little face after he does it is hysterical. He blows the cereal out, then looks at you with the "MOM! Did you see that?!" look on his face and grins his beautiful little grin. Tonight while feeding him I had a coughing spell and he had a mouth full of cereal, so he coughed after I was done. Don't know if it was on purpose or not, but all his cereal dribbled out onto his chin. He belly laughed for probably a good minute about that one. It was too funny for me NOT to laugh, so I laughed right along with him. What a goofy boy we have!

Brecken got to come with me to work for a little while this morning. We had a late start day so teachers could have meetings. Our daycare lady always has all her relative's kids at her house on late start days, and I knew there'd be upwards of 10 kids over there until school started at 9:30. They get pretty wild, as any kid does when they are in elementary school, so I brought B to our meeting this morning and he did great! He even stared very seriously at my principal and listened to every word he said. I had to smile about that because he was better behaved than some of our teachers were. :) I dropped B off at 9:15 just as all the kids were leaving for school. Then it was just him, his little friend that is turing one year old next week, and our daycare lady's 2 year old. Much more sane. :)

spring! (or close to it)

It's been so nice out the past couple days. Yesterday wasn't really that warm, but it was 40 and the sun was out, so Brecken and I went for his first walk around Saratoga. He'd been on walks before in Gillette when we went to visit my parents, but not in Saratoga because it's been so dang cold. Yesterday I bundled him up and we walked all the way to the post office (halfway across town) to get the mail. It felt good to get out!

sleep

If you were/are lucky enough to have a baby that sleeps through the night, thank your lucky stars and don't take it for granted. Unfortunately, I am not one of those lucky ones. Brecken is turning 6 months old on Sunday (already! Yikes, where does the time go?!) and has slept through the night 2 times in his whole life. And before I get any emails saying that I just need to let him cry and he'll learn to put himself to sleep, I am not a believer in the "cry it out" method. Babies cry for a reason and I will not let him lay there and cry himself until the point of utter exhaustion. I know that he is not just crying so that I will come in and play with him. If he was doing that, he'd open his eyes, see me, and smile. He does not do that. He cries until he is fed. And it's not out of habit because sometimes he'll go 5 hours, and sometimes he'll go 2. He's just HUNGRY. I thought I might be running low on milk- so we gave him bottles for a few nights to see if he'd eat more and sleep longer. Nope, not the case. He just needs to eat. And frankly, I'm a bit tired of people assuming he's sleeping through the night and then telling me, "Oh, well my baby was sleeping 10 hours a night at 3 weeks, so I wonder what is wrong with yours." NOTHING IS WRONG WITH HIM. He will sleep through the night when he's ready to. I think I'm doing pretty good for not having slept through the night myself since last April. (that's when my bladder shrunk to the size of a dime.) It's OK- 25 years down the line when my kids are all gone, I'll be missing them and missing the time we spent together in the middle of the night. That's what I keep telling myself at 2:00 a.m. when I'm dead tired and my boy is starving. :)

Josh went to Denver for the weekend for a coaching clinic. B and I had a nice relaxing weekend- didn't change out of our jammies until noon, played, practiced rolling over, just hung out. I was glad to have Josh back last night though. He goes to a science camp in April, for a whole week. That will be interesting.

I just checked the temperature outside and it says 50 degrees! YAY!! I've been waiting and waiting for some warm weather.