ahh, you have something right there...no there

a trip to dr. newcombe

i'm a little behind on my blogging as i've been preparing for jessica's bridal shower that is taking place this saturday. so. she better not ever say i've never done anything for her!
on july 10th i took talan to the dr. for his 15 month check-up. when we got there he, of course, wanted to get out of his stroller to play with the toys. while he was playing with the toys i was called to the window and was asked to sign some paper about his immunizations. right there i asked...he needs shots this time? and was told the dr. would look at it and make sure. i didn't really think any more about it.
suddenly, talan starts crying and i assume it's because he can't see me. when he comes walking over to me (the lady i was talking to at the window didn't seem to really want to let me go get him as she HAD to have her paper signed) i realized his lip was bleeding. oh well, at least we were at the dr.
so we're called into the room. after the nurse comes in to weigh talan and such, she leaves and hayden turns on his mp3 player. suddenly, the two of them are dancing around the room and never did stop until we left (or until talan had to get his shots, actually.) the dr. was pretty amused. she knows us well by this point so she understands the endless energy that travels with us.
one of the first things the dr. did (as most dr.'s do at any checkup) was to look in his ears. and right away she said "oh no." yup, that's right. talan has another ear infection. because he has now had at least 4, and especially having this one in the summer when he shouldn't be getting any, we were told we need to make an appointment with the ent. she gave us the name and number of a dr. that she likes the most because unlike most ent's, he doesn't just say "oh, this is his fourth ear infection, he must have tubes" he actually looks at the ear and decides what would be best. and sometimes that means not getting tubes at this very moment.
she asked us to set the appointment up in two weeks so that his ear infection would be all cleared up. we now have an appointment with dr. stone on july 30th so we'll keep you posted on that situation.
talan's cough has not gone away, by any means, and on top of that he's been snotty for the past 2 weeks. i mean nonstop snot running out of this kids nose. usually when she listens to him, despite the horrendous cough, he ends up sounding perfectly clear inside. this time, not so much. he was wheezing quite a bit and she said it wasn't clear inside this time around. so she then prescribed us the ear infection medication, some new sort of allegra and a new kind of singular trying to clear up his snot/cough/wheeze. she also told us to start giving him his breathing treatments again. so that's 4-5 different medications this kid is now getting.
yes, we did simply go in for his 15 month CHECK-UP, not an sick visit.
so the dr. FINALLY leaves and tells us to wait for the nurse to come in and give talan his 3 shots. the boys continue to dance around the room.
the nurse comes in and gives him one shot in the arm and then 1 on each leg. he cries for a few and then continues to cry, but mostly because he's so offended by it. she hands us our 14 prescriptions and we are on our way. after leaving the office i remember thinking...crap, i forgot to give the dr. talan's immunization card so she could document the shots he had gotten. oh well, the next time we're in i'll have her do it.
talan weighed in at 23 pounds 11 ounces which puts him in the 25-50%. he was 31 inches long which put him in the 50%.
right now he is wearing 12-18 month clothes but does wear quite a few 18-24 month as well. although the shorts the other day looked more like shants....but that's alright, cuz i love shants.
he is in a size 3 diaper although could wear a size 4, but why if the size 3 still fits him alright? they just give you less diapers for the same price.
so on monday, i believe it was, a nurse called and left us a message. when i called her back she said she needed to talk to me about the shots talan had gotten. she asked if i had given our immunization card to the dr. i told her i didn't and that i realized it after the fact. she said the the dr. had thought she had asked for it, but apparently not. turns out, talan already had gotten the 3 shots they gave him the other month. i took him into the immunization clinic and they had taken care of them all. when they were putting the immunizations into the main system it showed up that he had already gotten them.
the extra shots will not hurt him in any way, but they also won't count towards the ones he will need in the future because they were only a couple months apart. and the fact that we had to pay $17 per shot that we didn't need. and of course, his discomfort.
so our 15 month check up was quite the adventure. now here's some pictures of the dancing.

15 months

talan has had a pretty big month. it seems like every time i turn around he's learned something new. it's such a great age. an age that you can do something with them a couple of times and they've suddenly got it down. an age where everything is a game. i wish learning could be fun for me like it is for talan!
talan still is a fairly good sleeper, although he does wake up much easier than hayden ever did. he hasn't been taking many morning naps lately, but he has been getting out of bed later in the morning...sometimes 8 or even 8:30. he still takes a good long nap in the afternoon, usually from about 1 until 3:30 if not 4pm. if he's overly tired, it's almost impossible to get him to fall asleep. the other day after swimming we put him down for an early nite. he was quiet for a bit and then started talking and then started crying. we tried to let him cry it out thinking he'd cry himself to sleep...he had to be exhausted. but that never happened. at about 9:30 i took him out of his crib and he got down and started playing as if it were the middle of the day. i let him play for awhile and then put him back in his crib where he didn't make another sound until after 9am the next morning.
this month he learned to make several different noises. including a cat, dog, an elephant where he would also raise his arm as his trunk (although he recently has lost the elephant and refers to his cat noise instead), a truck where he raises his hand in the air as if he's pulling the semi-horn and yelling "HONK HONK", a car "beep beep," an indian (feathers not dots) and as of 2 days ago, a bear. you can ask him any one of these and sometimes he'll make the correct noise, but often times he meows or woofs until you make the correct noise and he'll do it back. unless he really just wants to meow or woof and then he'll just continue with that noise completely ignoring you. i'm used to it. i've had hayden around for 5 1/2 years.
he continues to say "mama" all of the time. he pretty much calls most people mama. he'll look in the bedroom in the morning for dave and say "mama." when i tell him to look out the window when dave has gotten home he says "mama." i believe he's called jessica and justin and mom "mama" within the past week. and just the other day while i was downstairs i heard talan say "mama" and hayden yell "i am not your mama!"
one day talan was in the kitchen whining about wanting something but i had no idea what is was that he wanted. i picked up a banana and asked him if he wanted that then i shook my head and said "yes" and he copied me. he now shakes his head yes often. almost anytime he sees a banana usually. but it does it other times too. like yesterday when hayden had left his video game on the couch and talan got it. he walked over to me with it in his hand shaking his head yes as if to say "yup, this is what i want to play with." he seems to know what it means as i've asked him if he wants something and he'll shake yes.
we have recently come to the conclusion that talan is a dog. when he was crawling, justin pointed out that he crawled like a bulldog with his hands pointed in. now, he walks around barking all day, he loves to go in the garage and will even take things out and possibly stick some of those things in his mouth, and he "digs." he will take out a bunch of toys like blocks or something with a lot of pieces. he will then get in the middle of all of the pieces and then basically start digging, scattering all of the pieces all over the room. he also loves to carry things around in his mouth.
he's starting to get all of those fine motor skills lately. for christmas, hayden gave talan a piggy bank toy and until a few weeks ago, he need us to put the coins in it. then the other week i looked over at him while he was playing and he put the coins right in the little slot as if he'd been doing it for a year. that's probably one of his most favorite toys. he opens the stomach, takes the coins out, puts them in the slot, claps for himself and then dances as it plays the music.
he has also started to learn how to put things away or "in." he dropped some cereal on the floor a few weeks ago and while i was picking it up i realized...hey, he can do this. so i started telling him "in, talan. put it in." and he picked up several pieces and put them back in the bowl. he CAN do it, he just usually doesn't.
he loves walking and you almost never see him crawling anymore. i don't even know if i got his "bulldog crawl" on videotape. he also can get himself back to the standing position from anywhere that he is. no more falling and then crawling to something stable to help him back up again. the other evening he was trying to get up and had his hands on the floor, butt in the air trying to push himself up. dave started kicking his butt so he kept falling back down before he could stand. he thought this was hilarious. good thing, because he'll be harassed this way for the rest of his life.
he has rediscovered his tongue and just loves to stick it out. he'll stick it out in hopes to get you to stick yours out and then you just go back and forth like this for way too long. he could care less if he just took a drink of milk or just put something in his mouth. in fact, if he did just stick something in his mouth he'll spit it out so that he can stick his tongue out. a good laugh is far better than a good meal.
speaking of laughs, he thinks that anytime anyone is laughing in his presence they simply must be laughing at him. yet another trait he has in common with his brother. they are both comedians and always want to be the center of attention. we were all in the living room watching hayden's new favorite show, wipeout. people were standing up on tall posts having to jump over a rotating arm. we were laughing as people were falling and talan figured...oh, they must be laughing at me....and if they aren't then they should be. so he sees what's going on on the tv and he suddenly starts laughing forcefully while he is squatting up and down as if he was jumping over the arm. he kept this up until the next commercial break.
talan loves shoes. he has for quite awhile now. if there is ever a pair of shoes by the front door he has always gone right to them. he'll pick them up and try to chew on them or just sit there playing with it. lately he has really taken an interest in his own shoes. he'll find them and bring them over to me and try to get up in my lap telling me to put them on him. i'm not sure that it's he wants shoes so much as it is he wants to go outside. either way....he likes his shoes on. when he does actually take one off, he'll happily hand it over for me to put it back on him.
and while we're on the subject of shoes. this kid has monster sized feet. no joke. and we thought hayden had big feet. we had to start buying way too expensive shoes for hayden because his feet were so fat at about age 2. he was in wide and extra-wide shoes from 2 until about 4. a little odd seeing as though my feet were so narrow as a kid we had to buy way to expensive narrow shoes. and dave's feet were never wide either.
so we have all of hayden's old clothes out from 1-24 months. talan has actually been wearing hayden's sandel's from when hayden was 18 months and talan is not even 15 months. and not only has he been wearing them...most of them are actually too small for him. i finally took him in to the way to expensive shoe store for fat feet the other week and his foot measured at about a 6 wide to extra wide. a 6. i all of the old shoes i have out from hayden none of them are a 6. that means i need to go out to the garage and get the box that says 2T. the box of things hayden wore when he was 2 years old. nothing else will fit him from that box, just the shoes.
his hands are also bigger than haydens, we noticed at his first birthday. we made hand prints and when i got the one we made for hayden at his first birthday we realized talan's hands were at least 1 knuckle bigger than hayden's. so hayden was short and stocky while talan is pretty average but has giant hands and feet. he's gonna be dave's football player.
talan loves to stand in his high chair. even if he's not done eating. he'll just stand up laughing away. when you yell at him and make him sit down, he cries and then stands right back up and is laughing again. he loves to hold the football that is in dave's car every time he sit in that carseat. when we get to stores and he sees a football he usually wants to hold one. and then it turns to throwing it. he loves to throw balls and he actually throws really well. he never sits still. he likes to do something when you tell him no. he loves music and loves to dance. he loves to make messes. in every room of the house. he loves to play in the basement. he loves playing with the drum machine both at our house and grandma's house. he loves justin. he loves justin so much so that when he fell and scraped up his face 2 nites ago, he was trying to get away from my hold and into justins. he loves to laugh, be it fake or real. he loves chasing hayden and playing hide and seek with him. he loves turning the clock radio in our room. he loves jumping and throwing himself on our bed. he can hear a dog bark when nobody else can. he's not afraid of loud noises. he loves to climb and can now get himself up onto the couches and chairs. when he falls, he usually laughs. he likes banging things together and will say "bang bang bang." he loves playing with cars. he loves pushing hayden's little einstein rocket toy around. he eats just about anything you give him, and usually eats way more than hayden. he loves playing at grandma and grandpa's house. he loves to have papa read him books. and lately he's been wanting more and more books read to him at home. he loves to entertain people. he loves to climb and will open my dresser drawers to climb up it.
he continues to hate having his diaper or clothes changed or sit still for any amount of time. he hates doing what he doesn't want to do. he has kicking tantrums when you pick him up and take him away from something he wants. if you give him something he doesn't want he'll throw it. he sometimes likes to be dramatic and throw himself on the floor and "cry" but that usually only lasts a few seconds.
really, there isn't much that he hates. i asked hayden some things that talan doesn't like and he said...i don't know. maybe going to bed? but even that he's pretty good about.
for the most part he's still a very happy and chill baby. although he now has his opinions and stubborn streak which leads to a few minor tantrums. but those are usually just a few yells and kicks and then he's over it.
he heads to the dr. for his 15 month check up tomorrow so we'll post those stats then.
happy 15 months, talan! we love you and still think you're about the best baby there ever was!

talan's first swim

yes, i am aware that i posted some of these pictures on the main blog, but it was talan's first swim!! that's individual blog worthy!
on july 6th, jessica invited us over to the house that she was house sitting at for an afternoon of trampoline and pool fun.
it took talan just a few seconds to get warmed up to the idea after we put him in his floaty raft, and then he was perfectly happy to just float around the pool. after awhile, dave took him out to swim around with him. he didn't like that so much, especially when dave tried putting him on his back. but in typical talan fashion he just grunted and whined a bit, no real screams or cries. he was happy to get back in his raft and splash around for a bit longer until he let it be known that he was over it and he'd rather be running around the yard.
hopefully we'll have more opportunities to get him back in a bigger pool this summer! gotta get him prepared for the ocean one day!

look what i did!

talan loves to make a mess. everywhere he can. and once he's made a big mess in the living room, he simply walks to his room. then hayden's. then ours. then usually back to the living room which may or may not have been cleaned up by that point.
the other day i was getting dinner ready and knew he was either in his or hayden's room. i walked in to find him in the midst of his masterpiece. and yes, that is one of dave's shoes for no apparent reason. and a water bottle that no longer has any water in it, but a few books do!
and really, this isn't even half of what he can do.

he doesn't like to sit

for years we've wondered how people are able to take their babies/children anywhere where they need to sit and be quite. hayden was NEVER that kid. we took him to his first wedding last august and even then we sat in the very back row and i packed tons of snacks, coloring books, mazes, etc. and we also bribed him, i'm sure.
when talan was born we were able to understand what parents of "normal" children are actually able to do. talan was calm as could be and would happily (and quietly) sit with you for pretty much as long as you wanted.
oh how things have changed.
taking after his big brother, talan now hates to sit still. quite a bit different than how we thought he'd turn out. when people see him them comment on how much energy he has. but really, as parents, it's all we've ever known. now that he can get around, he never wants to stay in one place for long. and that includes while he's eating.
he really would rather just walk around and eat, but sometimes we actually force him to sit in his high chair to eat with the rest of us. we recently have started strapping him down, but that just means he twists, turns, groans and yells trying to get free.
if i leave the room i'll hear hayden warning me "talan's starting to stand up again!" and i'll come in to find this:
oh yeah, and did i mention that he thinks it's hilarious?!





(his shirt is soaked simply because he's been one big walking drool machine. every shirt has looked like this for a week now.)