“God hears "Amen," wherever we are, and I love you…Godspeed little man...”

It’s already September! And not-so-little-anymore Caleb is already 7 weeks old. The past few weeks have been a blur of trying to settle in and adjust to two children, but we’re getting there.

You guys probably already heard this through Facebook, but Caleb was just in the hospital for 5 days. He just wasn’t acting his super calm, best-baby-in-the-world self, so I gave the doctor a call. I was SURE that they would turn me out of the office laughing, that I would FINALLY hear the words I’ve so longed to hear… “Oh Mrs. Tirado, you’re worried over nothing! All babies get fussy, it’s totally NORMAL!” But no. Not us. Each trip to the doctor seems to automatically be a hospital admission. And this trip was no exception.

My children are full of lessons in medical terminology. Let’s take a walk down medical-memory lane…

Premature Rupture of Membranes (PROM)

Premature Birth

C-Pap

Bilirubin

Nasal Cannulas

Autologous Stem Cell Transplant

Infantile Spasms

EEG’s

… to name a few. Caleb wanted to be sure he had an opportunity to teach as well, so our new experience included…

A spinal tap.

He had a little fever, he was obviously VERY uncomfortable, and he was only 5 weeks old. The very first thing they have to do with a baby his age is rule out meningitis, so we headed straight to the hospital and he had a spinal tap. They did lots of other blood work and started him on antibiotics. To make a long story short, they finally figured out he had a UTI, and it turned out to be a group b strep infection. Any of you parents out there know that every mother is tested for group b strep at about 34 weeks, that it’s a very common bacteria that is harmless to the mother but can cause very serious problems if passed to a baby during delivery. I was negative for group b at 34 weeks, but must have been positive by the time he was born. We’re told we’re very lucky it didn’t turn into meningitis, pneumonia or a blood infection. I’m happy to tell you he’s back to his jolly old self.

Just after he came home, about 15 minutes before hurricane Irene hit, Caleb had his baptism.

(Michy and Swel, godparents)

He was baptized in the gown my grandmother made…. I wore it, most of my cousins wore it, Sarai wore it too, I think it’s the neatest tradition!

(And my mom made the beautiful christening cap!)

No one could travel here because of the incoming hurricane, and I guess it’s a good thing because we needed all those leftovers to feed the extra 7 people who were stranded here for 3 days because roads to the city were closed.

And little missy Sarai… you might have also seen on Facebook that she just started Hippotherapy, basically physical therapy on a horse.

It’s great exercise for her and really challenges the muscles in her core. She doesn’t like it yet, it takes her a while to get used to new things and new people, but once she’s used to it I think she’ll love it! Of course we had to bling out her riding helmet…

Only the best for my baby!

School is starting in just a couple days, I’ll be home for 5 more weeks and then back to work I go. Hopefully my little lovies will be able to stay out of the hospital for a while!