Caleb @ 2 months

We have officially survived two months of being parents of two. Caleb is growing so fast! He is weighing 10lbs and 6 ozs now and is 22 inches long (the funny thing is he is 1o ozs and 1 inch behind Kylie at the same age!). He is becoming a much happier baby whether this is due to his reflux meds or because of age doesn't matter to us, we are just happy that he is happier! He is cooing and smiling a lot and is even content to sit alone in his bouncer seat for up to 30 minutes...Yeah!

Kylie is being a great big sister. She loves to help with everything and can make Caleb smile just by walking into his line of sight. I can't wait until he gets older and they can play together and will hopefully be good friends!

Survival

I am surviving the long days alone with the kids. It is not a piece of cake yet and trust me, I am so thankful when bedtime comes, but it is getting easier everyday that Mike goes to work. Plus when I have two healthy, happy kids smiling at me, I can't help but enjoy the little moments

Fun in the sun

To beat the heat these last few weeks, we have been enjoying lots of pool time at my dad's house. Kylie absolutely loves the water and once she gets in, it is hard to get her out! She loves to crawl along the pool sides and jump in and go under the water. Caleb, being too little for swim diapers, hangs out poolside with whomever decides to sit out. This last time, my dad and Michael got into a huge water gun fight with Kylie stuck in the middle for a while. They had a great time and were both laughing harder than I have heard either of them laugh in a while and Kylie enjoyed helping daddy block grandpa's shots!

A hospital visit

We recently spent all day Monday and the majority of Tuesday in the hospital with Caleb. He stopped breathing for about 10 seconds Sunday night and again for 20-30 seconds early Monday morning. Sunday night we just thought he may have aspirated on some spit-up but after the morning, we were worried that there might have been something seriously wrong. So off to the hospital we went via ambulance.
Of course, once we got there Caleb was acting totally normal so the ER doctor, who was annoyed at being woken up (we're assuming), told us he was fine. We finally convinced him to talk to the pediatrician on staff who agreed that he should be tested to see if anything was going on since it was more than a one time thing. She decided to give him a 24 hr apnea test. This test was set up by an outside company, so after waiting 7 hours for the guy to show up, Caleb was hooked up to monitors and had a tube down his throat to check his reflux. We were not allowed to pick him up except to feed him, he had to be placed on his back and if he fussed/cried all we could do was give him a pacifier. It was horrible! After 5 hours of the test, I noticed that the machine said the memory was full; thus leading me to believe it was not recording the data anymore. I had the nurses call the company multiple times and was reassured that it was fine and recorded over itself (sounded silly to me if it was suppose to be a 24 hr test). The next morning, the guy came in early to tell us that there was 'equipment malfunction' and that the memory should not have been full and the test did not record!!!! He wanted to do the test over again...needless to say, we were upset!
So we called our pediatrician and told her what was going on. She agreed that he shouldn't have to repeat the test (he didn't set off any of the apnea alarms so his breathing had been fine for the 24 hrs) and asked that we stay to have an upper GI done to check his reflux. After waiting 4 hours to do the test (he had to be hungry so he would drink the barium), we were told that he has severe reflux. He doesn't spit up that often, but we are thinking that he tries to keep it down which is what was causing him to choke and stop breathing. So, they sent us home with some medicine and now Caleb is doing much better. I just wish that they would have done the GI test first because then we would have been home Monday night!

Zoo trip

We decided since our attention has been focused on Caleb for the last few weeks, we should do some things with Kylie that are special for her before Mike goes back to work. Last week we went to the zoo. We decided to go to Brookfield Zoo, even though we normally choose to go to the Milwaukee zoo ( a little farther but, in our opinion, much nicer). We had a pretty good trip.

Kids wise it was great! Caleb slept the whole time, waking up to eat and then back to sleep (except the car ride home.. but after 8 hours of happy accommodating baby; you can't ask for much more).

Animals wise, the zoo was a let down. There were so many empty exhibits that when you found an area where there were animals, there were so many people crowded around it was so hard to see anything! In fact, there weren't even an elephants out (my favorite and what Kylie had been talking about seeing the whole way there). We were able to be at the seal exhibit while the zoo keepers came out to feed them and had a front row seat for the tricks they put on for the crowd. Kylie learned a new animal sound (seal) and then would make us laugh every time she barked like a seal and clapped, or waved her hands (picture). She also surprised me by falling in love with the giraffes. She sat in front of them for a good twenty minutes or so just watching them stand and eat. Now, we have to take her little giraffe animals everywhere with us and had to get giraffe books at the library.

The nicest part of the trip was the wonderfully nice people we meet on the way in. Two grandparents taking their grandson came up to us in line and offered to get us in with their free guest passes since they were zoo members. How sweet and thoughtful!