March 22, 2009....It's a hard-knock life...

Sorry it's been awhile (I know I made the same apology in the last blog)...

Life's been a little rough for us in the past few months. January ended with Greg's hours at the Sentinel being slashed.

February brought illness to our house in the form of RSV for Kaleb, which landed him in the hospital for 24 hours with a diagnosis of RSV, bronchitis, dehydration and a double ear infection. Our poor little guy was poked and prodded. It took them 5 tries to get the IV started. By the time they got the IV in, Kaleb was just whimpering when they would stick him. In addition to the IV, they had all sorts of monitors.

Four days after his hospital stay, Greg was laid off from the Sentinel. Words cannot describe the terror and hopelessness that I felt that day. What could possibly be next?

At Kaleb's 4-month appointment, we found out that they're concerned about Kaleb's fontenel (soft spot) closing too quickly, so we have to go back for monthly appointments so that they can monitor these. The good news is, his head grew another 1/2 cm this past month, but they want to continue monitoring it. Should it close too soon, he will require surgery to create room for his brain to continue growing. But hopefully, it's not as big of a worry as they think it might be, and they just can't feel it.

Work is finally picking up for me. After a few setbacks with clients who have passed away or gone into nursing homes, it looks like we're finally catching up and I'll start getting bonuses again. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, since we REALLY need the income now.

Prior to Greg's lay-off, we had decided to start getting our bills and spending under control. We recently signed up for Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and are working towards getting things under control. Since this blog has become more of a family blog than a baby blog at this point, i think I might start a new one to utilize to keep everyone updated, even if it's just with pictures!

BUT, since it's 10:30 at night, that's something I'll do it another night.

Kaleb is doing really well, despite the medical issues. He's now 5 1/2 months old, and he's getting so big, so fast. He can sit up and stay sitting up now... for the most part. He tries so hard to sit up on his own, too. He can roll over and get himself comfortable when he's sleeping, and that includes sleeping on his tummy. I can't get him to sleep on his back now. He now sleeps in his crib in his own room....until he decides that it's time for a meal-- it varies between 2:30-5:30 am now. With his wakeup call, he gets scooped up by whichever one of us (usually me) stumbles into his room and brought back to our bed to eat and sleep out the rest of the night. That's how Mommy is able to make it through the day. I'll tell you what, though-- I'm exhausted by about 9pm every night. It takes everything I have to stay up later.

Kaleb also "talks" to us now, often with a series of squeals and shouts to get our attention. He enjoys playing "PEEK" and is ticklish! He has the best laugh I've ever heard! Very boyish, though, definately not a girly giggle!

He's becoming attached to favorite toys. He loves his "puppy" that his cousins gave him on his birthday and a penguin named "Star" that Evan gave him. He's also very partial to a ladybug that rides on his carseat. He and his bug have long conversations in the car. It's quite funny.

Kaleb is also starting to respond to music and other children. We went to cousin Sami's concert the other night, and the kids were all dressed up as bugs. You should have seen Kaleb BOUNCE up and down when they walked by and then when they were singing. It was priceless!

He's definately started recognizing people, too. He LOVES his Papa's! They're the ones that he sticks his tongue out at every time he sees them, and knows that they're going to play with him. Papa B likes to "scare" him and Kaleb will squeal in delight. Papa V got him to do the squealing... Thanks, Papa. He LOVES spending time with his Gramma's, too. Once he's with one of them, it's fairly easy to sneak away. He's got them wrapped around his little finger!

We're still waiting for the crawling thing. I think that's partially our fault that he's not already doing it. We just don't do enough tummy time with the kid. He's so happy in his exersaucer, and he gets madder than a hornet when he's left on the floor.

We started him on solids this week. What a mess that is proving to be! LOL! He REALLY enjoys his cereal, but boy, is it messy!

Magic has amazed us. She LOVES Kaleb, and will let him pull and prod her without protest. When she's had enough, she simply walks away. Kaleb's ended up with a few mouthfuls of fur from our letting him "pet" her. Whoops.

Evan is doing fantastic, as always. He's getting so big. And he's so stinking smart and athletic.

He can out-manuver Greg now in checkers. He really has quite a strategy when he's in the mood to do so. He's also moved on to "big-kid" games, such as Clue Jr, Yahtzee and Monopoly. He's so close to reading, too. I have to admit, though, we haven't been very good at reading a book to him every night we have him. The days seem to get away from us! We need to work harder at building that time in for him, and for Kaleb, too.

He's such a good big brother. I'm so proud of him. He really tries hard to set a good example, and also is such an affectionate brother. He has to make sure he gives Kaleb kisses before he goes back with his mother.

He almost made me cry last weekend when we had him. He asked me if he could call me "mom", too.. When we got home, he and I sat down and discussed that together. He understands that he has his mommy, and by calling someone else her name, that might hurt her feelings. He knows that I will always be his "my jenn", as he has called me to his classmates when explaining who I was. It's funny... this would have been my dream a year or two ago, but becoming a mom myself changes that... I though about how I would feel if Kaleb called someone else "mom".. It's such a sacred name, and I don't think I could have truely understood that until I had Kaleb. What an honor though, for a 5 year old to ask me that...

Ev continues to do well with Karate, too. He got his stripes on his yellow belt. Greg and I are so impressed and proud of how he's progressed with Karate. We weren't sure that it was such a good idea when he started it, with his history of fighting and tantrums at school. But to his credit, he hasn't "karate chopped" anyone yet. And his teacher is VERY strict about hitting and only using Karate as a defense. We've also been very strict about it. He knows that if he EVER uses karate as a means to hurt someone, that his karate days will be over.

He's doing pretty good at school. He has more green and yellow days than he does blue and red, so that's good. We try really hard to use positive re-enforcement with him. I think Greg has found that I'm a little stricter than he is when Evan has had bad days-- the other day we just didn't have time to make dinner, so we went to McD's, Ev's favorite restaurant. He wanted a chicken nugget happy meal... I voted that he gets hamburger, apple juice and fries, but I got veto'd. He got chicken nuggets and fries with chocolate milk. But I was sure to point out that the toy was spiderman (one of his favorite cartoons) and that it was too bad that he had a rough day, or he could have had a happy meal.. bwahahah. I'm a mean step-mom.

He's a really good kid. I enjoy spending time with him and doing things. But, he's definately a boy. LOL. We took him to the art museum (free activity) and he really wasn't impressed-- except for the dead-guy stuff (mummies). The rest of it, he was bored to death with. Although he was pretty impressed with the glass blowing exhibit in the glass arts building.

Anyway. That's about all I have. I'm running out of energy, and it's 11pm. SO, I'll post this, plan on getting some pictures up tomorrow (maybe with Greg's help) and go from there!

love you all!
jenn