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after getting home from our trip to grand rapids on tuesday, dave was helping to get the boys ready for bed. we were all in hayden's room while he was getting ready and dave was holding talan. talan suddenly dropped his binky, looked down at it and said "uh oh" as if he'd been saying it for years. we made such a big deal out of it that he kept dropping it and saying it, not as perfectly as the first time, but you could still tell it was an "uh oh."
so pretty much his first words are "wow" "woah" and "uh oh." so much for "mama."
today talan cash turns 10 months old. i can't believe that i'm already trying to get 1st birthday stuff together for him. how did it go so quickly?! he has been such a welcome addition to this family and loved from day one. we often wondered how hayden would do after having all of our attention for the past 4 years, but he welcomed him with open arms and when asked "are you glad talan came to live with us or do you want him to go back?" he has always answered "stay with us!" phew. it doesn't hurt that talan has been such a happy, laid back baby.
talan now has 7 teeth, 2 of which just broke through the gums this week. he really hasn't ever seemed to bothered by teeth coming in. he occasionally has had an explosive poop or a runny nose, but no real fussing goes along with it.
he eats like a champ but is a little less interested in real food most of the time. when we started introducing baby food he was slow to adjust. he much rathered his bottle. now, he doesn't take a whole lot of bottles but is slow to adjust to having to eat himself. i think he'd just rather someone do it all for him. he typically eats 8 ounces of formula in the morning, for lunch he'll eat a 6 oz. container of yogurt along with 2 or 3 containers of baby food and then will sit and eat some crackers or baby puffs. most days he'll drink another 6 ounces after his afternoon nap and then eat 4 more jars of baby food and some bits of pear or crackers or pasta...whatever is around that i think he might actually eat.
he is still taking 2 naps a day...yeahhhh 2 naps!!! he'll wake up sometime around 7am and then go down for his nap around 9:30. he wakes back up around 10:30 or 11 just in time to see hayden get home from school. he eats lunch around noon and then goes back down for another nap around 1 or 1:30. he typically wakes back up around 3, eats dinner around 6 and heads for bed around 8. many evenings he is tired before then so we've put him down earlier...that seems to work as he still wakes up at the same time in the morning.
he continues to mostly scoot on this stomach to crawl but he totally has the ability to crawl for real. i guess this kid just doesn't like change that much. within the past week he has been crawling on his knees more and more. most of the time he does it when he sees something that he wants to pull up on. so if he's across the room and knows that he's going to crawl to the couch to pull himself up, he'll crawl on his knees since he'll need to get up on them once he reaches it in order to pull himself up. this morning i was getting his bath ready while he was in his room and as soon as he heard the water going i heard him crawling right for the bathroom. he crawled on his knees from his bedroom to the bathroom door when he then decided to just scoot into the bathroom. but really, if you could slide yourself on your stomach, wouldn't you?!
this month he has grown to love pulling himself up onto things. the couch, the baby gates, the crib, my leg. the beginning of the month he would pull himself up and his feet would be way far from the object he had pulled up on. he really didn't like to take steps so he'd end up falling onto his face. by the end of the month he has realized it works out a lot better if he just takes a couple of steps closer to the object and then he won't fall over. he still won't really take steps if he's holding on to our hands or to walk himself across an object but he'll at least take those couple of steps so he doesn't fall onto his face.
he continues to babble more making all sorts of noises. "dadada's" and "mamama's" and dedede's" a bunch of things that don't make any sense. he also says "wow" and will sometimes say it back to us when we say it to him.
we have started teaching him some baby sign language. something i didn't do for hayden. i always thought that if you teach a kid that, they won't be that motivated to actually talk since they can communicate with you. i still kind of feel that way, but figure some communication is better than nothing. right now he mostly does the sign for "more" if prompted but it's basically him just clapping his hands. it's something though.
we have taught him "how big is talan" and when you say "SOOO big" he'll bring up both of his hands and cover his ears. i guess he realizes he's really not THAT big. maybe when he grows a little more he'll put the hands all the way up.
he seems to be quite efficient and should be able to multi-task extremely well later in life. if i pretend to call him on a phone and say "hello? hello talan" he'll simply move his head to the side and touch his ear to his shoulder. no hands. no reason to waste his hand by holding a phone when his ear and shoulder can do it.
he continues to love jumping. every morning before his nap he and i come to the basement so i can work out and he jumps in his jumper right along with me. if he's playing upstairs with his toys and starts to get fussy you usually can just put him in his exersaucer and he'll happy right up.
he loves to spit, as i posted pictures of just the other day. and he loves to have you move your finger up and down on his lips while he makes noises. the other day i guess he really wanted to do it so he started moving his mouth up and down on my leg while making his noises. i really have no other way to explain that....i'll just have to get it on video.
he hates to sit still which makes changing his diaper near impossible. he loves the cat, but the cat is usually not so thrilled about him. he's the best thing to come home to because the second you walk in the door he gives you a huge smile. he has the world's greatest laugh and he does it often, especially for hayden. he is way stronger than he should be. he loves to swing upside down. he loves to be thrown in the air. he still likes to eat fuzz. he loves to splash in the bath. he hates having to get his seatbelt on in his carseat, but once he's in it he's fine. he can play in his toy corner by himself for long extended periods of time. he is the greatest.
it will be interesting to see what this month holds but i want it all to slow down. we love you talan. happy 10 months!
talan went into the doctor for his 9 month check up on tuesday. surprisingly he looks and sounds very healthy. the doctor looked at the report we got from his cat scan and said that pretty much everything with it looks typical and normal for a dermoid cyst.
she said that his chest sounds nice and clear even though he still has his 90 year old man smokers cough. she once again stated it's something we just need to wait and see if he grows out of. she said some kids can be wheezy and have these coughs for the first year of life and then clear up and never have a problem again.
no shots were needed this time around and he doesn't need to go back in until after his first birthday (of course, i'm sure we'll be back in before that!)
talan now weighs in at 20 pounds 1 ounce which is in the 50th% and is 29 1/8th inches long which is in the 80th%.
he also is now the owner of 5 teeth. after getting his first two bottom teeth in MONTHS ago, he received the two top ones last week and then yet another bottom one this week. and boy are they sharp.
the ninth is a very prominent date for birthdays in this family. my mom is may 9th, mine is july 9th, jessica's is (today) january 9th and talan's is april 9th. so today while jessica turns 27 (was i not supposed to say that?!) and i turn 30 1/2, talan cash turns 9 months old.
so many things have changed and i tell myself i'm going to write things down so when it comes time to write these blogs i'll remember everything. but i never do. so going off the top of my head, here are some things that i can remember from this past month.
talan has conquered pretty much all of the baby jarred foods that he can without a single allergic reaction. yeah!! he has become much better about eating fruits and i rarely have a hard time getting him to eat them. there still are days where he will make a slight face or decide he's over it which he will NEVER do when eating sweet potatoes. by the end of the month he typically would eat 3-4 jars of food for a meal. in between the jarred foods he takes anywhere from 6-8 ounces of his formula. there are some days that he still doesn't want to be bothered with his solid foods, he just wants his bottle. weening him could prove to be a bit more difficult than it was with hayden.
he has also started eating some real solid foods a bit better. he has eaten some avocado, crackers, raisins, animal crackers and his little baby puffs. typically more ends up in his lap or on the floor than in his stomach, but he does eat more than last month. he doesn't seem to want to chew though. he'd much rather just let it sit in his mouth....much like his brother still does.
he still loves to eat paper but has also grown an appetite for fuzz. he just loves to scoot himself across the floor and pick up fuzz balls to shove in his mouth. it's a new cleaning method i'm trying out.
talan is still a happy, easygoing baby but he has become a bit more vocal this month. if he's frustrated or wants something he'll be sure to let you know. he doesn't really scream like a baby typically screams, he'll more or less yell at you. there are no tears and he's not even trying to make it appear like he is crying, he simply yells until he gets what he wants. after 9 months he finally realized that's what he needs to do in order to compete with his brother.
months after getting his 2 bottom teeth in he is finally in the process of cutting his 2 front teeth. they finally broke through his gums 2 days ago and after breaking through, the explosive poops have thankfully stopped.
this month he continued to get around by scooting himself pretty much refusing to even try a normal crawl. he gets around quickly and can get wherever he wants to get so he's perfectly comfortable scooting around like an amputee. he can now also sit himself up and at this point has mastered it. before he would try to pull himself up and weeble wobble before finally making it all the way to the sitting position. now he has no problem sitting himself up anytime, anywhere. i went into his room one morning to find him sitting up and thought....oh yeah, he does that now, guess we should be moving the crib mattress down a notch.
his most recent development has been pulling himself up to the standing position on occasion. i have heard a rumor that while at his cousin rainah's 1st birthday party my dad looked over to find him standing while holding onto the fireplace. so i guess december 29th would have been his first time, that anyone saw at least. since then i have witnessed it myself several times with him typically pulling up on one of his baskets of toys to have a better look.
thankfully his sleep patterns are much better than they were several months ago. he goes to bed around 8pm and usually stays asleep through the nite. he might wake up and squawk a bit around 11ish but we are able to stick his binky in his mouth and he'll just go right back to sleep ( well, he really isn't even awake to begin with). there have been several times that he'll wake up in the middle of the nite but we just let him cry it out which sometimes can be quite a while. thankfully that doesn't happen very often anymore. he'll wake up anywhere from 5-7am but will typically eat a bottle and go right back down to sleep. if he's up at 7, he'll stay up until close to 9 before going back down for his morning nap. he wakes up a little before hayden gets home from school at around 11:15am and then will go back down for his afternoon nap around 1 or 1:30. even though i don't feel like it many days, i am getting quite a bit more sleep than i was 2 months ago.
he celebrated his first christmas and new year and attended 2 birthday parties in as many days. he took yet another trip to the hospital for his cat scan and the results came back with good news. hayden can still make talan laugh like nobody else can even if it appears to me like hayden is torturing him. when babbling he mostly makes the "mama" or "baba" sounds but he has at times seemed as if he is trying to mimic us by saying "no" and most recently "wow." he also likes to click his tongue or make these weird throat clearing noises. he likes making these noises best while he's sitting in his high chair eating with hayden present. he'll make the noises and just look at hayden and try to get him to laugh. if hayden's in the other room i have seen him make the noises and stretch to see if hayden notices him.
talan still loves to jump in his jumper and has recently realized he can also jump in his exersaucer. it doesn't seem to be as much fun for him and he'll only really stay in that for little bits at a time. i just moved his swing out to the garage even though he still did like being in it at times. maybe we'll have to bring in the outdoor swing and rig it up in the basement somehow.
he has gotten into playing with toys much more now. he loves taking 2 stacking cups or 2 plastic balls from some of his toys and banging them together. he also has really grown to love throwing things. he'll pick up a cup and just throw it out in front of him, sometimes with pretty good distance. he'll pick it up again and throw it again. he can repeat this for quite a while. he also likes banging toys on the wood floors. if he's playing on the carpet, he'll scoot himself over to the couch so he can bang the toy under the couch. i have even caught him stashing toys under the couch on purpose. he loves toys that light up and make noise but still probably would rather just bang 2 plastic toys together.
we are headed out to have his 9 month pictures taken this afternoon. we plan on getting some bath tub pictures to match the ones hayden had done at 9 months so we can put them both up in the bathroom. we also will be going to the dr. for his 9 month check up on the 15th. we'll be sure to post the pictures and his newest stats when they come in.
unbelievably there are only 3 months until you are 1. let's try to slow it down a bit. happy 9 months, t-money!
i got a call from the plastic surgeon's office the other day letting me know that the cat scan results were in. it looks like the cyst is not attached to anything which will make for an easy removal.
we were told it is up to us if we want it removed now or if we just want to wait. since it is a new year now, which means a new $4000 deductible, we'll be waiting to have the cyst removed. we'll just watch and see how quickly it grows to determine when it is best to have it removed. at least the procedure will be easier and cheaper since it is not attached to anything and no neurosurgeon will need to be in for the surgery!
thanks for all the thoughts and prayers.
today we went in to providence hospital to have the cat scan done on talan's dermoid cyst. he still had the slight cold that delayed the procedure by a week but he was good enough to have it done. wednesday evening hayden came down with a fever and all i could think was that talan would have it before we made it in today. but he didn't!
i woke talan up at about 11:45pm last nite in order to get him to fill his stomach up since he wouldn't be able to eat after midnite. he took pretty much the whole 8 ounce bottle and went right back to sleep. i actually don't think he really ever woke up in the first place. he woke up this morning at about 5am and cried until we got him out of bed at a little after 6am. my mom was able to hold him and play with him and make him stop crying which i didn't think would happen. i figured he'd be screaming until he was knocked out or he got a bottle in his mouth.
we left the house at about 6:40am and he ended up falling asleep on the car ride there. he woke up a bit after getting there but was still really good. we sat in the waiting area waiting to be taken in for "surgery" for awhile and eventually he fell back asleep.
the drug doctor's came in to get us and explained just what they were going to do. we were allowed to go down to the cat scan room with him and i was even allowed to hold him while they stuck his leg. i passed him over to the dr.'s and then they let us wait just outside the room. they didn't get him in there until about 8:50, so almost an hour late. but they were back out about 10 minutes later and he was already starting to wake up a bit. they said the last few shots he started moving a bit but the pictures came out clear so it was all good.
they had to put an iv in him because the dr. wanted the cat scan "with contrast" so they needed the dye in him. if he didn't need the iv, they said it would have been even quicker and easier.
they brought us up to the recovery room where a nurse sat with us while he was waking up. he was totally out of it, but after a while he started moving more and more. he very slowly ended up taking about 5 ounces of his bottle and the nurse released us probably a little after 10:30am.
the nurse told us we should call the plastic surgeon and see if maybe we could get a rush on things and try to get the cyst removed before the new year since our deductible has been met for 2007. she said they most likely would be able to do it. unfortunately, when i got home and made the call, i found out that his dr. is out of the office until january 3, so that's just not a possibility. it's ok since it would have been a major rush to have christmas, rainah's 1st birthday, hayden's 5th birthday and a surgery on top of it. but it would have been nice not to have to worry about it or the cost of it!
we left the hospital and headed to my parents to pick hayden up and then we headed home. i was expecting a "low key" day with talan being groggy and tired most of the day. not long after getting home, talan started crawling under the christmas tree and crawling towards all the things he shouldn't be touching. so much for a low key day.
he did end up finally going down for his afternoon nap and slept for quite awhile. he's now upstairs crawling around acting like every other day. i really breed tough boys.
of course, i couldn't leave my camera behind. so now poor talan has to live with photo's of himself in a half awake state. i'm sorry talan. that's what happens when you have a mom that blogs.
thanks for all the thoughts and prayers. they certainly helped! i was sure we'd go in there with a screaming baby, but instead, he charmed all of the dr.'s and nurses the way he charms people every other day of the week.
by the way, they weighed him when we first got there and was was 19 pounds 8 ounces. not too bad, but hayden still had him beat. at 9 months hayden was 21 pounds 3.5 ounces. i don't think talan will be gaining that much in the next couple of weeks! although, it is christmas.
waiting to be taken in. the next time he wakes up in the middle of the nite, no way am i getting him. look at how pleasant he is and he hadn't eaten in about 8 hours!:
talan just out of the cat scan:
dazed and confused:
waking up a bit more and finally able to eat a bit:
what are these things and how do i get them off?!:
the other day i posted about how talan would be going in for a cat scan on wednesday, which would be tomorrow. so yesterday afternoon someone from providence calls me to ask me all of these questions and inform me that we need to be there by 7AM and he cannot eat anything past midnite. yeah, that's going to go well.
so she asks me if he's had a cold recently. well, no. but his brother has one and we're crossing our fingers he doesn't pick it up before tomorrow.
then i put him to bed and he suddenly couldn't breath. snot was pouring out of his nose and he couldn't get comfortable or get any kind of good sleep. wonderful. he needed to stay well just one more day and he couldn't even do that.
so i was making phone calls all morning trying to figure out if he was still allowed to go in with a cold. for whatever reason, nobody could really answer my questions. i was passed from department to department until i was finally told it would be best if i rescheduled because if he coughed or sneezed and moved we'd have to do it all over again anyway. then came the hundred and two phone calls in order to reschedule the appointment. another thing nobody could help me with.
i finally got to the right person and they rescheduled our appointment for next friday, the 21st at 8am. which again means no eating after midnite and be there by 7am. awesome. hopefully by then this cold will pretty much be gone and no new illnesses will attack.
this afternoon we went to the pediatrician for hayden's 5 year check up. so i asked her really quickly about the cyst. she said that looking at it she was sure it was just a dermoid cyst. so i told her the plastic surgeon said the same thing but that it could be attached to the tissue surrounding the brain. she told me that sometimes it can be attached to the bone, so in order to remove it, a neurosurgeon would be there as well. but then she went on to say that only about 90% of dermoid cysts are attached to the bone like that. she said that she has probably only seen 1 in the past 12 years and she would be pretty surprised if she had just seen another. however, it is talan, so neither of us would be THAT surprised.
so yeah. things were cleared up a little bit more with her explanation. it seems like the chances are pretty slim that it is attached to anything but they need the cat scan to make sure.
so there's the update. we'll let you know how things go next friday. if we make it there, that is.
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