Every year Cade has to drive around northern Arizona during the week of my birthday. I usually go to Mesa so I'm not hanging out by myself on my birthday. This year I decided I would go with him. As boring as being in the car with kids for hours at a time is, it sounded better than taking care of the boys by myself with very little sleep. The boys did great. Caleb slept most of the car ride. Conner had activities to keep him busy and there were enough stops to keep things going. We mostly had to stop at Walmarts as Cade set up cubicles so Conner just enjoyed playing with the toys in the toy aisles. The Page Walmart has an area with little rides for kids to play on, as well as a massage chair that you can pay a few dollars to get a massage from. After being there for awhile Conner decided to jump off that massage chair. I saw him doing it and wasn't at all worried because it wasn't very high and jumping off of things has been his new thing. But somehow it didn't go right. I guess he didn't catch himself enough and his head still hit the concrete floor. He wasn't too happy and you couldn't help but feel a little bad for the kid.
While at one of the hotels we gave Caleb his first real bath. Its amazing that it took that long, but it had just been easier to give him sponge baths up to this point. (Ok actually Tina gave him his first real bath the morning of his baby blessing, but it was really quick and we weren't watching so I'm not counting it.) But he loved this bath.
Just a few hours after this picture was taken things were very different. In the middle of the night Caleb woke up, I fed him and tried to put him back down, but he was really fussy. It took some effort, which was strange. Not long after that he woke up screaming. We had no idea what was wrong and NOTHING helped to calm him down. The poor thing (and us) screamed, and I mean screamed, for over 2 hours straight. After that he finally cried himself to sleep for short periods but then would wake up screaming again. We called his pediatrician, they said since he had cried for over an hour we should bring him in. But of course we were a few hours away. We thought about going to urgent care but I really had my doubts that they would be able to help an infant with a mysterious problem. Cade needed to either finish up his work or would have to drive all the back the next day. While trying to decide what to do Caleb calmed down a little and fell asleep so we decided to try to check out of the hotel (we were supposed to stay another night), get Cade's work done as fast as possible, and head home. If he started screaming again before that then we would try urgent care. Luckily he was mostly done screaming. I took the boys to Denny's while Cade worked and Caleb slept for most of the day. On the way home we stopped for dinner in Flagstaff and he started screaming again but stopped as soon as we started driving again. Then he was fine. Our only guess is that I ate something that really did not agree with him. I have no idea what that would have been and we haven't had anymore problems since then.
Here Caleb is in the middle of a yawn or sneeze .
The first smile caught on camera! And maybe its just me, but I think he looks a lot like Uncle Sam here.
It did stink that we had to end our trip early because that day was actually my 30th birthday and we were going to celebrate that night and the next day. Cade had some ideas of things we could do in Page that would have been fun. But after that Cade just got right back into work and my birthday was forgotten. I actually had found something a few days later that Cade was getting ready to make me. I didn't get enough of a look to have any idea what it was because Cade stopped me just in time. I kept waiting and waiting to get this mysterious thing but it never came. Finally the day before Valentines Day (over a month later) I mentioned it again and I received it for Valentine's Day. It was a candy bar card. It was really nice, but it would have been nicer had I received it anywhere near my birthday and without reminders.
Conner loves jumping into the picture when I start to take pictures of Caleb.
That was the end of our visitor/vacation streak. We started trying to get back into a normal routine. Caleb was still staying up until 12-1 am and waking up every 3 hours to eat and I was getting to my limit of patience with that whole thing. Cade was really busy at work, came home at midnight many nights. (Why did both of our kids end up coming right before tax season?!) And poor Conner was really the one suffering. I had very little patience for that kid for awhile. It didn't help that a little before Caleb was born Conner went on a bit of a rebellious streak and was throwing lots of tantrums. As it continued into this time, I no longer was nice about it. And everyday Cade turned on some tv show on Netflix as he got ready in the morning and the episodes kept playing while I slept in. Conner has never seen so much tv in his life! He possibly watched more tv in the last 3 months than in his entire life before that, so sad.
A few weeks later my parents came for a quick visit. It was nice. They got their first experiences in the prowler.
The boys heading out
My mom heading out. She's thinking "Oh this will be fun to drive around the block."
My mom returning. Now she's thinking "That was not around the block! That was flying through a dirt field going 100 miles an hour!" (According to Cade it was 30 mph)
At Caleb's two month check up he weighed in at 13.8 pounds (61%) and was 23 inches (25%). He seems like a giant to us. He has grown so much faster than Conner did. At 2 months Conner was not yet 11 pounds. And Conner has always worn clothes at a younger age than he is. Caleb starting wearing 3-6 months clothes right at 2 months and now at 3 months he is starting to wear 6 month clothing.
Many people ask if Caleb looks like Conner did as a baby and the answer is YES. When I look at this picture I think its Conner, but I know it's not. They definitely have the same eye shape (not color), mouth, and pale skin.
Here is Conner in the same pajamas a couple weeks older than Caleb was in the above picture.
The big difference between them is the hair, or lack thereof. Its easy to tell this is Conner because of all the hair, but just the face alone sure looks like the face of Caleb above.
But in this picture Conner's hair is flatter and could be mistaken for Caleb.
Speaking of hair, Caleb was born with some really long, straight hair. He had a little mullet in the back that we cut off just before the grandkids pictures and never got a picture of it. Then as the days went on he started to lose a lot of hair in some spots and not in others. So we started giving him small haircuts to try and even it out. By 2 months we had already cut his hair 3 times. Luckily, after being ugly old man type of bald for a couple of weeks it started to grow back in. Now he has a pretty even head of hair, but still not a whole lot of it.
Caleb's hair not long after birth
Soon his hair was similar to daddy's
A little bit more evened out, but he continued to lose more and more hair for awhile.
Now its growing back in nicely.
The night he found his hands!
Last week things finally started getting back to normal. I finally feel like I have time and energy to do more than just the bare essentials (which is why I'm finally blogging again.) Caleb just started going to sleep by about 9:00 (for the last 4 nights) and has been waking up on average 2 times a night. I can't wait for him to sleep through the night, or even to only wake up once. But looking back at how bad he slept at night in the beginning, I'm happy to at least see some good progress. Conner is past his tantrum/rebelling stage and is great with Caleb. He just loves that little guy. And thankfully they are finally taking naps at similar times so I have some time to myself again. And there is a lot less tv watching going on now. Cade and I even went on a date a few weeks ago. We went to dinner and then saw the Harlem Globetrotters. It was fun. Not as many tricks as I hoped for, it was more of a comedy. But still it was great to be alone for a little while.
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