Today is my birthday.

 

Carry on.

For the most part.

Mini T has really hit a milestone, last night. He slept from 8:30pm til 2:30am. This is not optimal, but it is a great step. He also went down without crying and went right to sleep. Some will say “so?”. Well, he is 10 months old and has not slept through the night more than 3 times in his little life.

Because he’s been so sick, he’s a little developmentally behind. Nothing severe, just behind in things like holding himself up, rolling over and sleeping through the night. But this is all due to his being so sick.

So, we are thankful for his being healthy and starting to sleep.

Man, this is tough.

Titus is on elecare. What’s elecare you ask? It is a very expensive hypoallergenic formula, for children that are allergic to all sorts of things. Primarily it is for those allergic to soy and milk. It does not contain fructose, lactose, galactose, milk protein, gluten or soy protein.

All in all it is great, it has all the nutrition they need, however, at 10 times the cost of regular formula. $30+ a can. And a can lasts almost 2 days. That’s right people. $16 a day for formula to feed Titus.

However, it is worth it. It also seems to be helping alot! However it is draining our checking account. He has to be on this and it is for health reasons, yet insurance usually does not cover this type of “care”. Sure they’ll help with other allergies, but not food related ones. This formula is basically a “medical” formula. It was designed to prevent kids from getting severly sick or even dying. Yet it is not covered by insurance.

He does seem much happier and has even taken some big leaps in developement, since he’s been out of the hospital. He is rolling over finally (this has been hampered due to trying to keep him asleep by propping him up and stuff) he waves to people, plays peek-a-boo and patty cake.

Yes, we have a new addition to the family. A 2006 Nissan Maxima. We found it at the credit union dealership and got a great deal on it. It’s white and has that funky sun-roof stripe. It is very roomy and fits the kids car seats perfectly. No scrunching up into the steering wheel like a NASCAR driver.

Sadly, we had to trade in the Mazda 3. But that’s ok. It was way too small to fit everyone into.

Now I have to consider putting my bike racks on the new car.

Well, we now know that Titus has more things that could be affecting his sleep. We were told it was simply his acid reflux, but that didn’t sit well with us. Too vague. So Anna pushed hard and we got some tests done. Well, he has a milk allergy. YEA! So now we know that some medications could be preventing his healing. Because some meds have lactose in them. I know a yea sounds mean, but we now have something to go on. Sadly it also means that we must keep an epipen around. This is a needle that you stab into your heart in case of a food allergy attack. Ok not really. You stab it in your leg. Sorry, I just watched The Rock recently. These “pens” prevent people with severe food allergies, from dying. It is a little daunting to think about having to stick Mini T in the leg with one of these. However, when you think of the alternative (death) it becomes much easier.

Also, some acid reflux medications rob your body of good bacteria that aids in digestion. So we found a way to get the good back into him. There is a pill you can get at Whole Foods that helps with this.

All that being said, he still is not sleeping at night and that’s really hard on us still. Nine months without a full nights sleep is very taxing on the body and emotions. Sadly he sleeps better while being held and also he sleeps well during the day. At night when we need him to sleep? Not so much.

Right now it is hard to say how he is doing. Partly because he had a touch of whooping cough and also pnuemonia. So he is healing from that as we’re trying to changed and add medications to him. At night we have to give him a cocktail of meds. We must put 3 meds in one bottle for him. That is just wrong. But needed.

We will get through this and hopefully soon. It’s been a long nine months.