Heggy Blog

My first baby turned three years old yesterday! He is getting so big…I just want to freeze him. I’m trying to soak in all the things I love about this fun age.

In honor of James, here is a list of some of the things I love about him right now:

He is getting more and more independent (actually a love/hate, because it can take a long time to get anything done when he constantly insists “I do it myself!”).

He is getting smarter–I love that I can explain things to him now and he will usually understand, on some level…awe…reasoning.

He loves to say “To finity (infinity) and beyond!” when jumping off/on the couch (which he is not supposed to do).

I love that when I tell him not to jump on the couch he says “I’m not jumping, I’m falling with style!”

The way he makes his toys have conversations. Some of the funniest things I’ve ever heard and seen. Example: He had one of his “Thomas” engines (that has a face) talking to the disconnected train car (with no face); this was the conversation: Train car: “Can I bite your face off?” Engine: “No! You can’t bite my face off!” train car: “Oh, okay. Let’s go!” What the??? I hope he never says that to anyone .

When he gets so excited and talks in an extremely high voice and fumbles over his words.

When he says: “Oh no!” often followed by “that’s not good.”

His prayers…they can be so random.

He LOVES his daddy. They have the cutest relationship.

I love that I can still see my little baby in him. One day he’s going to be a man and those glimpses of the baby he used to be won’t be there anymore…sad thought.

I said that I would post soon…not so soon, but at least I’m doing it.

Here are some pictures and updates of our lives over the last couple of months:

Cash at 2 1/2 weeks. Andrew’s sister Jeni took these and did an amazing job…as always.

To keep James entertained, my parents brought over a couple of growing dinosaurs for James to take care of. They grew to six times their size in three days. Pretty fascinating. James thought so.

Here he is playing with his new pets…until he accidentally ripped the head off of the yellow one. Oops.

Andrew worked long and hard refinishing James’s bed. I think it turned out so good. I think it’s a step up from the mattress on the floor .

And I also just love his quilt. I looked and looked for just the right thing and I couldn’t be happier with what we decided on. Cute, eh? I’m pretty much in love with his bed.

O.K. I’m totally embarrassed to admit this, but we FINALLY got rid of the binky…the beloved binky. We had gotten rid of it when James was 14 months old for two whole weeks, but then James got pretty sick and that was the only thing that would give him comfort and us some sanity. While he only had it primarily at naps and nighttime for the last year and a half, we couldn’t find a good time to get rid of it…with our two moves, the potty training (which took priority), and the baby. So, no more excuses…it was time to say good-bye.

James loved cutting it up. I didn’t know why wasn’t more emotional about it, until we were all done and he said “now let’s fix it!”. I kind of felt bad when I told him it was now garbage. It was like I tricked him into destroying it so we’d have to throw it away. We had talked for weeks about giving his binki to the garbage truck and he was excited about that…even if he didn’t know it meant he would never see it again. We went to the store the next day and picked out a new car and a Buzz Lightyear toy as his prize…which kind of made up for it.

Adieu.

We visited the Pleasant Grove Fire Department at a breakfast fundraiser they held one Saturday morning…mostly to support a friend who’s a firefighter in that department. James loved the firetrucks until some kid honked one while he was in back and scared him.

Blessed Cash June 6th. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful blessing.

Naps are almost non-existent these days…for all of us but Cash. It’s all gone downhill now that James doesn’t have his little friend (the binky). He still isn’t ready to go without them, even though he won’t take them. So, I’ll often find him sleeping in strange places.

Poor tired guy.

And here’s Cash getting bigger and bigger! What a sweet little face.

Until next time.

Last week Cash had a blood test that showed almost all normal levels! He has two that are still abnormal and we’ll have to go back in a couple of weeks for one last round (we hope) of testing, but the potassium is normal now and that was our biggest concern. We are so relieved and feel so blessed. We know it is because of the many prayers that have been said for him.

I know I’m a horrible blogger, but more updates and pictures from the last month are soon to come…

We have loved our first 5 1/2 weeks with our sweet baby Cash…even though we’ve had some difficult news. We have had some expected (kind of) and unexpected things happen regarding his health. He, like James, was diagnosed four days after birth with MCAD deficiency (to learn more about that go here), which means we are feeding him every three hours (which would be a nice stretch for me since he eats every two right now). It was hard to hear the news even though we knew there was a possibility. It’s never easy to hear that your child has special needs–especially when they could be life-threatening. Each of our children have a 25% chance of having the disease and we are now 2 for 2. This time around we feel much more prepared to handle it and can see how happy and well James is, which is comforting.

The other added stress we’ve had that was not expected was discovered after our appointment at Primary Children’s when we met with the specialist for MCAD. They take blood at each appointment and apparently Cash had (and still has) high potassium. It is critically high. We have gone back for more blood tests each week since then and it is continuing to drop. We are just praying that it will keep dropping. I wasn’t aware of the dangers associated with high potassium, what it could mean, and so I did some reading. While it could be many different things, none of them are minor problems (kidney disease being the most common cause). We are just praying that his potassium levels will drop to a normal range. We will be going back at the beginning of next week for more testing.

It’s so hard to feel so helpless…

(Cash after getting blood drawn from both hands…poor guy)

We just need prayers.

From the beginning of my pregnancy Andrew has joked about how I would have my baby on the freeway on our way to the hospital because I was going to deliver at Utah Valley (because I didn’t want to change doctors), and we now live in South Jordan. Of course the thought terrified me but I was pretty sure I would be smart enough to go to the hospital early enough…

Story of the labor and delivery: I woke up from a nice long nap Sunday afternoon around 3:45 and started having contractions. I had had some uncomfortable contraction on a few other occasions, as early as 35 weeks along, that had five minutes apart for 2-3 hours, but they eventually went away after relaxing. So these didn’t alarm me. Andrew suggested we at least take our bag with us in case we needed to go (which I only partially packed because I was so sure we wouldn’t be going). We then went to my parents’ house for dinner. On our way there they were gradually getting worse. I still thought it was the position I was sitting in and that I wasn’t relaxing enough. They were getting closer together and Andrew was insisting we go. I hadn’t been in labor for very long and thought I had plenty of time to wait a little longer before rushing to the hospital. I don’t really know what I was thinking. At about 6:00 I decided we had to go because the pain was getting much worse. We left James with my parents and rushed to the hospital, which was still about 20 minutes away. The contractions were so strong at this point that I was pushing with each one. I was so scared that we weren’t going to make it and kept thinking about how Andrew had joked about this very thing happening. As we pulled into the front of the hospital I could literally feel myself pushing something out…luckily it wasn’t the baby’s head; had my water broken, it probably would have been. Andrew put me in a wheelchair and we made it to labor and delivery. They hurried to get me started on  antibiotics for Group B strep, which you are supposed to have at least four hours before delivery. The nurse checked me and I was complete and ready to go (obviously, since I had been pushing). They called my doctor but he didn’t think he was going to make it. I asked for an epidural even though they said it wouldn’t take away all of the pain. I was glad I did because I was able to hold on long enough for the doctor to arrive and it gave the antibiotics more time to get into my system. I could definitely still feel pain, but it was nothing compared to what I had already been through. After four sets of pushes baby Cash was here!

April 18, 2010, 7:12pm. 6 lbs. 14 oz. 18.5 inches long.

Our first family picture

My mom gave me this cute hat for him as we were leaving to go to the hospital.