Two is the Magic Number (and Brady's health update)

Lately I've had a mild case of baby fever. My guess is seeing our neighbor with their brand new baby girl did it to me. Brad was not amused with these thoughts. Let me tell you what though...this week has completely cured whatever fever I had. I'm even close to the point of making the decision permanent. This week has been rough. Parenting can be rough. Yes, it has endless joy and rewards too, but its hard work. I want to do best for my boys. I want to get through the days with teaching them, playing, with them and even having to discipline them without screwing them up royally. Blake has tested me in major ways this week. I've been beating myself up about his behavior. What am I doing wrong? Are all days going to be like this? My always insightful friend Heather pointed out to me, that 1)its the age 2)he's testing his boundaries and limits with me since we are in this new ballgame of me staying at home every day with him now. However, it are the days like I had yesterday (NIGHTMARE) that she said will make me stronger and in the end will build a stronger bond and relationship between Blake and I. She's right. The day ended with Blake wanting to snuggle me in his bed and as I was getting up to leave he said "I want to keep you mommy. Stay." Normally he kicks me out to have his daddy time. It washed away the bad day, gave me the desire to start again the next and to believe in the words Heather told me. I'm not a failure as a mommy, I am doing what I feel is right for my children and that's all I can do. We are all allowed bad days. I'll give Blake a pass on yesterday.
Brad pointed out to me as well, "Could you imagine having been pregnant for the last nine months? Everything we've dealt with with Brady, could you imagine having been pregnant through that all?" I can't. And I can't imagine having another baby and going through even half of what we've gone through with Brady again. Two is starting to sound more and more like the perfect number.
Here is a run down on our doctor appointments this week:
Pulmonologist Highlights:

• Very concerned about his weight (what got me the most down), but wanted to defer to gastro for his thoughts.
  
• Even though Brady has had a lot of respiratory infections it did not surprise him due to where his immunity levels are at and should be what I can expect for the next cold/flu season and possibly the next few after. (BUMMER) HOPEFULLY will outgrow it by 3 but if not HOPEFULLY 4 or 5.
  
• Still having to thicken Brady's liquids. When he has a healthy window again we will try to ween him off the thickener and if it is unsuccessful will have to do a bronchoscopy (scope) to investigate the airway/lungs. PRAYING we do not have to do this.
  

Today's Gastro appt highlights:

• Even though his weight was not where he would like to have seen it (he's gained about 1 lb since January 11th), he is not too far off from where he should be on his own growth curve. Not sure if I've mentioned on here before or not but in the midst of Brady's bugs over the last month or two he started refusing his formula from bottle or sippy cup and only thing he will drink is water. The extra calorie formula he was on provided approximately 500 additional calories a day. And with those gone, even if he's made up for some of that in extra table food, he's missing a lot of calories. He feels if he had stayed on the formula his weight would be right where he would have liked to see it.
  
• Good news, he has grown 1 1/2 inches in height! The doctor actually made the nurse re-measure to make sure it was accurate because was shocked (in a good way) he had grown that much in this amount of time. YEA! Because of this, he did not feel we needed to be referred to an endocrinologist like he had mentioned at our last visit.
• He said he hates to put him on another medicine, but he's going to. He called in an appetite stimulant to hopefully encourage Brady to consume additional calories.
  
• He said I'm a conservative doctor and basically all of his tests (and there have been a lot of tests) have come back normal, he looks healthy, acts healthy and developmentally is right on track, and I feel if we can get him to gain additional calories he'll get to where we need him to, so now...we wait. I said, well I am not patient and am over waiting and the worrying if I have a healthy child or not. His response back was, please leave my office reassured that Brady is a healthy child and I am confident he is on track and we will help boost him to where he needs to be. Okay, I'll take that for now.
• We will do a weight check in 6 weeks.

So that is the latest. I am going to relax, stop with so much worry and just continue to do all I possibly can for this sweet boy and we'll take a day at a time....