6 MONTHS OLD ALREADY

I want to apologize for being a BAD blogger lately.  I can't believe it's been almost 3 months since I updated my blog.....life is crazier with two kids than I ever thought possible.  With that being said, I can't believe my baby is 6 months old already (well, I guess technically 6 1/2 months).  Time has flown so much and it makes me sad:0(  I always thought pregnancy flew by but oh my goodness where does the time go once they get here?  Cameron is getting soooo big.  He changes daily and looks nothing now like he did as a newborn.  We recently had his 6 month check up and here are his stats:

Birth:  6 lbs. even, 19 inches long
6 months:  13 lbs. 9 oz., 25 1/4 inches long

They are supposed to double their birth weight by 4 to 6 months and triple it at a year.  Brayden was and is such a small kid and I think he just barely DOUBLED his birth weight at a YEAR..he's always been smaller than average.  I think Cameron is going to be bigger than his older brother!  He actually doubled his birth weight at 4 months but now he's kind of slowed down a little and hasn't really gained more than a few ounces in 2 months. 

It's exciting to see him learning new things all the time....he's VERY strong and can pull himself from sitting to standing by just holding onto your hands.  He's rolling all over the place....trying to figure out how to crawl, etc.  He still hasn't mastered sitting up on his own though.  He tries, but topples either forward onto his face or backwards.  That's actually an 8 month milestone, but I think he'll be there well before 8 months.  He's also become quite the screamer!!!  I've never in my life heard such a high pitched scream before....it's really blood curdling and goes right through you.  He went from sleeping through the night at 9 weeks old to now wanting to wake up once or twice during the night to eat and when he does wake up it's that blood curdling scream that he wakes you from a dead sleep with!!!  He's completely flip-flopped on his sleeping/eating schedule.  I'm hoping it's just part of the 6 month growth spurt that they experience which can wreak havoc on their whole body.....not fun!  He's also had diarrhea for about 3 weeks now and they aren't sure what's causing it as we haven't done anything different.  We have to drop of a stool sample this week so they can see if it's anything infectious going on.

Brayden still amazes me every single day at how smart he is.  He really is a brilliant child.  Everything he is doing now is at about the 5 year old range and he's only 3!  His vocabulary, memory, learning capacity, etc...just blows my mind.  He uses HUGE words for his age and always appropriately.  You can sing him a song like twice and he has the whole song memorized instantly and can sing it back to you word for word.  He knows what all his letters look like and he can tell you what words actually start with each letter, you can lay a bunch of items out and he can count them all and tell you how many are there, he goes online to kid's sites (has known how to use the computer since he was 2) and can figure out any game on there by himself without having ever seen the game before.  You can also read him a book a couple of times or tell him a story a couple of times and he has it memorized and can repeat them back to you almost verbatum.  I could go on & on but like I said, he's ALWAYS been way ahead of the game developmentally since he was a baby.  He crawled early, walked at 9 month, carried on full conversations & knew all his colors & shapes by 18 months, etc....I'm just really really proud of him.  I just wish now that his behaviour would improve because it's a complete nightmare.  Nothing discipline-wise works on him.  You tell him something and he completely ignores you.  He's also extremely hyper and rambunctous....but I'm told that this is all part of being "gifted" or whatever you want to call it.  He's not the "average" child and a lot of his problem is that he's bored and not challenged enough. 

If you remember from one of my previous posts, Scott lost his job back in December and that caused a great deal of stress & worry in this house.  We prayed very very hard about it and THANK GOD he was only out of work for 6 weeks before he landed another job.  He did take a pay cut but we are just thankful to have an income AND health insurance again.  God is good!  I know that it's taking people a year or more to find other jobs in this economy and I'm just thankful it didn't take him that long.

I can't remember in my earlier posts if I talked about my post partum struggles or not and I'm too tired to read back through the posts so I'll just tell you a little bit about what's happening there.  I know you've all heard of post partrum depression (or PPD) because it's VERY common.  I never experienced it with Brayden but this time around, the day after I had Cameron my PPD actually manifested itself by causing Panic Disorder, which is also quite common and I so wished that someone would have warned me that this could happen.  When it hit me, it hit me with a vengeance and I had a horrible panic attack in the hospital.  I've been struggling on & off with them since then and after Scott lost his job they got worse.  I recently had a several week spell of nightly panic attacks.  I would wake up with a fierce panic attack every time I'd try to fall asleep and this would happen sometimes 10 times a night, one right after another.  I would get out of bed and pace the floors until I calmed down and then as soon as I'd lay down and try to fall asleep it would happen again.  I ended up going on medication which only made things worse.  It got so bad that I had to spend 3 weeks with my mom so she could help with the kids because I couldn't function going on about an hour of sleep per night for those weeks.  I've had tons & tons of testing, bloodwork, etc.....to rule out some major health issues (which again THANK GOD tests were all negative).  I think I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm VERY happy to say that it's been a whole week since I've had a panic attack.  For anyone who has even suffered one in their life, you know how horribly frightening they can be.  I have a new understanding for the people in my life that I already know suffer from them.  I've had my medicine tweeked and continue to have it tweeked and I think it's finally helping.  Please keep me in your prayers that I will be healed of this.  They are 99% sure it was caused from hormones after having the baby since it all started the day after I had him.

Well, I guess that's pretty much an update of the last few months. 

Now here are a few pics from a couple of months ago up until now....I'm having their pics taken together for Cameron's 6 month pics but have yet to do so.  As soon as I do, I'll post pics.  Also, my mom took some cute ones from Easter and if I can get her to download them off her camera, I'll post those too:-)

Trying to help big brother play video games!

Cameron has some of the biggest, most beautiful eyes I've ever seen!

I'm gonna miss these adorable "gummy" smiles...he's trying to cut teeth and I get sad when they do because you can never go back and get these gummy grins back.

Brayden loves laying on Cameron's activity mat, holding his hand.

I thank GOD every day that my boys love each other so much.  I really worried how Brayden would react to a new sibling, but he loves his baby brother more than I ever thought possible.  It's soooo cute watching them interact.

My handsome big boy with his Wii remote in hand....LOL

I love this sleeper!

The ONE and ONLY time he's ever napped (or slept) in his crib!

Easter 2010 - Grandma found them matching outfits at Kohl's:-)

Thought it would be funny to try Brayden's Halloween costume mask on Cameron.  Cameron loved it and we were all laughing so hard.  Brayden didn't even get jealous about his baby brother wearing HIS mask....what a good boy!

The Wolverine mask didn't fit quite as well as Spiderman, but he still loved it!