
These 2 extremely cute little boys celebrated their birthdays this past week. Jaxon is 7 and Berkley is 2. After Jaxon’s birthday party, he came and told me, “Mom, now that I am 7, I can carry Berkley around.”
So, tonight I was sitting here wondering where the time goes. It seems like Jaxon was just born, and I loved becoming a mom. Nothing else even compared to it. From the moment Jaxon was born he was on the move. He crawled at 5 months old, and was walking by 7 months. At 10 months he spent a week in the PICU because he woke up one morning and couldn’t walk anymore, and not only could he not walk, but he couldn’t even hold himself up next to furniture. The doctors all suspected it was a virus called Guillan Barre virus, but the tests they ran on him weren’t conclusive enough to know for sure if that was really what he had. So, he was pretty much paralyzed for a week, and it was a horrible thing to watch. They put an IV in his head. He had 2 different spinal taps done, CT scans, MRI’s, and a bunch of other stuff. I can’t even remember all the stuff they did to him. They were about to start him on some gamma globulin (I think that’s what it was) treatments, but before they ended up starting that, he began to get the strength back in his legs and little by little he began to walk again. That was one of the most horrible weeks of my life. Jaxon became a big brother when he was only 14 months old (ha ha ha….I put 14 months old, but he was really 16 months old. I think I am going crazy), and ever since then he has had a huge responsibility. And the responsibility increased even more when we found out all the stuff that was wrong with Keaton and Parker. I remember sitting in my room on the floor crying and crying one day. I couldn’t stop crying, because I was so upset about Parker and Keaton’s health problems. It was so difficult to swallow all of that. I was trying to accept the challenges that had been placed before our family, but that night, it all became too much for me and I just cried and cried. I didn’t know what to do, but after I had been crying for a while, little Jaxon came in my room. I think he was only 3 years old at the time, but he came over to me and put his arm around me and said, “it be okay mommy.” And he was right. Even though things weren’t turning out how I had imagined them, everything really was going to be okay. But, I remember being amazed at the huge responsibility he had. Not only was he trying to help his brothers out, but he had to take care of his extremely unstable mom. He’s such a good boy. He can be crazy and wild like most little boys, but he really is just an amazing little boy. He can draw these amazing pictures. I think he’s going to be a little artist. He’s been such a good example for his younger brothers. I’m so glad we have him and that he’s the oldest. He helps me out a lot.
Then, we have Berkley. I got pregnant with Berkley right after we found out Parker had arthritis, and Keaton had cerebral palsy. I was sooooooooooo stressed out about everything with him. The tiniest little thing that didn’t seem right, I would pretty much panic. Mostly with Berkley I just remember being scared about everything. I think before he came down here to be with our family he was plotting against me in heaven. I think he thought it would be fun to scare me a little. Right after he was born he got an infection in his umbilical cord stump. It wasn’t bad, but I of course panicked. Wow, did I get stressed out about every little thing. Then, when he was 2 months old, he got sick with bronchiolitis, but I was so sure he had RSV. I kept taking him back into the doctor. I think I didn’t sleep at all for 2 whole days. I was so scared he was going to stop breathing in the night and I wouldn’t know, so I sat up with him and did what I could to help him. Then, when he was 4 months old I couldn’t get him to push on his legs or use his legs at all. After seeing what happened with Keaton, I totally convinced myself that he had cerebral palsy and couldn’t use his legs. He never did stand on his legs until he was 7 months old, and I can’t tell you how much I worried and panicked about that. I would take Berkley with me to Keaton’s PT appointments and have the PT look at him and see what she thought. And, the PT did think it was weird that he wouldn’t use his legs. I think he was just super laid back and was happy to lay on the floor. But, I would lay awake at night so convinced that there was something wrong with him, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep at all. And, on top of all of that, when we went in for his well child check-ups, his head began to start measuring unusually large. It just kept getting bigger and bigger and the doctor seemed pretty concerned, so I asked him to please tell me what it meant and why it was such a big concern. He mentioned things like hydrocephaly (I think that’s what it’s called) and that it might be a tumor, so they would need to do a CT scan to see if there was something wrong. So of course, once again I completely lost it and panicked. We got the CT scan done, and the results came back normal. I remember I didn’t even know how to react when the doctor called to tell me everything looked good. I thought for sure they were going to say something was wrong, and I kept waiting for them to call me back to tell me they got Berkley’s scan mixed up with someone else’s and there actually was something wrong. With each of my kids I have gotten pretty stressed out when they got sick or they got hurt, but Berkley was a whole new level. I’m surprised I didn’t have a heart attack. I took him into the doctor for EVERYTHING. After he turned 1, I think I finally started to calm down a little bit. But wow, that was all so stressful. Mostly that’s what I remember about him as a baby…..pretty sad, I know. There was one good thing about him as a baby though, and that was how cuddly he was (and still is). Sometimes he just wants me to hold him and he’ll sit and cuddle with me on the couch. He’s such a cutie. He’s already talking in sentences, and not just short 1 or 2 word sentences, but long sentences. Today he was playing with his brothers and cousins downstairs and for some reason they all decided to go upstairs, and Berkley stood up and said, “Hey guys, wait for me!” He also will come say to me, “I want to watch (a) TV show.” Anyways, even though I was extremely tense when Berkley was born, he was really good for me. It’s kind of ironic, but when I would get so upset and scared about everything, the only thing that could calm me down was to go pick up Berkley and just hold him in my arms. Here I was so stressed over this little baby, but at the same time holding him in my arms was exactly what I needed to keep me somewhat sane. I’m so glad we have him. I really can’t imagine our family without him.