Wordless Wednesday

Life as We Know It

Almost 6 weeks after Caleb's birth and we're finding a routine.
Ahhhh, Normalcy. Schedule. It's nice to see you again.

We've been back in the Big Chicken for about 3 weeks now. We've never been so happy to say goodbye to PadThai and hello to Dumplings.
I was quickly reminded of our welcoming back home when my texts started looking like this...



Normalcy and Schedule include a lot of time with this dude:


The Asian dude, not Caleb. Well, Caleb too.
But every morning our tutor comes and hangs out with us all morning, joins us for lunch, and occasionally stays through the afternoon if we're feeling the desire for more inundation of Chinese.
The kids knew we were back to normal when he started showing up at our door again every morning.

A normal day at our place includes plenty of brother time.


Salem so happened to get some of Caleb's first smiles.


The normal days also include this tall, gorgeous, almost-4-year-old, who is back in preschool again and truly doing great with it.


A normal day for Salem now includes sleeping on a big boy bed below his sister on their bunk bed.


I'll admit that Caleb is a fairly easy baby and his normal days include plenty of sleep.


While the other two enjoy living room forts...


Caleb also does his fair share of this...


But even through the screams. The scary fevers at 2 a.m. The baby barf on every.single.one.of.my.shirts. He's worth it. And I'm so glad my days include some alone time with this dude every 3 hours!


Normalcy. Schedule. Routine.
Stick around for awhile, won't you?

What should have taken 15 minutes...

In case it hasn't been noticed, I'll state it out loud.

Apparently adding a third child to the family seriously takes away from blogging time.

Thankfully though, the only thing that is suffering from the changes of adding a 5th family member is the blog. Us? We're thriving. We're loving this mini-man and what he adds to our family.

Sure, we're occasionally sleep deprived, covered in baby vomit or urine (learning the hard way yet again about baby boys!), and entertaining our older children by non-stop movies...but we're thriving! :)

My parents went home on thursday, which means we lost our entertainment for Eden and Salem, our cook, our dish washer, our extra set of diaper-changing hands, and extra shoulders for burping on.

We're truly grateful they were able to be here and to stay for so long!!

I wish someone would have told me with my first baby to throw the books out the window and to just stare at my baby, hold her, and enjoy her. We didn't do a good job of enjoying Eden's newborn stage like I think we should have. We were far too concerned with schedules, making sure she got her 15 minutes of allotted wake time before naptime, and making sure we didn't "spoil" her by holding her too much.

I feel like, finally, with our third, we're enjoying our baby. We're treasuring his newborn phase. Sleepless nights and all, we're holding him just a bit longer, laughing at him while he does the weird REM newborn eye thing, and doing our best to not be swept up in the scheduling that a newborn needs.

Meanwhile, Brandon has been taking care of business. Applying for a passport for my newborn and getting his Thai birth certificate translated are things that make me breathe heavily and want to pass out and never wake up. We're up a creek if I ever have to start acting like a responsible human being.

My one baby that wasn't born in Thailand sure is handsome in his Thai clothes...

And my two Thai babies...

Maybe the reason I'm enjoying Caleb more is because he's our third and we realize how fleeting this time is. Maybe its because we're "seasoned" parents and are more used to the grunts and growls and squeaks of newborns. (me thinks not)
Maybe it's because he's most likely our last newborn to have around.
Whatever it is, we're soaking up time with our sleepy head.

And now that it's taken me about 3.5 hours to publish this one simple blog, maybe I'll take that as a cue to take a blog hiatus!
over and out... for awhile.  :)

Going home...

Caleb has been fever free for 24 hours now. While we still aren't sure what exactly caused his temperature to spike, we're hopeful it was just a virus that has now passed! We praise the Lord for answering our prayers and watching out for our baby boy.

We should get to go "home" this afternoon after our Doc checks him out one last time. Thanks so much for lifting up our mini-man! We are so blessed to have people going to Father on our behalf!

Update on Caleb

Update #2:
The urine analysis, blood tests, RSV, and flu tests all came back negative or normal. Meanwhile, his fever has not returned since this morning after having tylenol. So while we don't know what was causing him to have a fever, at least it has not returned! If it doesn't return any during the night, we'll be able to go home (or back to our apartment here in Bangkok!) tomorrow. Praising the Lord that he's not a feverish little boy any more. Praying it stays away!
Thanks for your thoughts for Caleb!




We wanted to inform you all of an update on Caleb so you can be praying for our mini-man.


Thursday evening he began running a fever of 101.2. Friday morning we brought him to our pediatrician who suspected he had caught a cold virus. He gave us some saline drops and told us to watch him closely and come back in if the fever persisted. After continuing to run a high fever (for a newborn) throughout friday night, and after an early morning phone call to a precious cousin who is a pediatrician and whose advice we cherish, we decided to bring him back in this Saturday morning to be examined again. His nose, chest, and lungs are all clear. So they have drawn some blood to test for bacterial infections and will do a urine analysis to see if he has a UTI...among other tests and cultures that I'm unsure about. While waiting for the results, he's been admitted to the hospital since they're unsure of what's causing his fever and so that they can monitor him closely. He'll probably need to stay for about two days until the test results come back. We're actually in a great situation as he's in his private room and I have a bed right next to him to stay with him the entire time. We feel comfortable with this decision and are hopeful that one of these tests will come back positive so we'll know what's causing the fever and we can start to treat it. If these come back negative, he'll have to undergo some more intense tests. Pray with us that we'll know soon what's causing this fever in our baby boy and that he won't have to have any more tests done.
Right now he's snoozing right away and with the exception of the fever and an IV in his arm, he looks perfectly normal.

Praises:
My parents are still here (yay!) so Eden and Salem are getting some more alone time with their grandparents! Praise the Lord for his timing and that they are still here!
A great hospital and doctors whom we trust.
Caleb is still eating, sleeping, and pooping normal...in other words, in the realm of baby-ness, he's doing great!!


We'll update when we know more.

And Baby Makes 5

Tuesday was a day that included lots of drama. Lots of pain. Lots of worrying, doubting, praying.
In the end, it was a day that resulted well.


A healthy baby boy.

With eager siblings who couldn't WAIT to see him for the first time!


Who also weren't so sure about daddy's costume.



Very first photo of all FIVE of us...which of course would only be accurate with Salem's finger up his nose.



Eden couldn't be more ecstatic about Caleb's addition to the family. And actually she was concerned about anyone else getting more holding time than she was.


Salem thought "baby" was alright but was more taken with my hospital bed and big screen tv.


We're adjusting to three kids 3 and under and certainly have our work cut out for us!


Mini-man learning about the world around him...through deep blue eyes.


Though most of his nurses couldn't pronounce his name, at least he came labeled as royalty. :)




More pictures soon to come of all the holding, cuddling, oogling, and cooing going on in this household.

Welcome, Caleb!!

Caleb Turner Chancler

arrived August 16, 2011 at 5:18 pm

7 lbs 14 oz, 20 inches long

We're all doing really well and truly enjoying God's newest little blessing to our family!

More pictures and stories to come.

We praise our amazing God for a healthy baby boy!