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Everyone welcome Chase Richard Thayer into the world!!!

We are all good!

This is just too good not to pass on to all. Something absolutely positive for a change. I have repeatedly seen the breakdown of the cost of raising a child, but this is the first time I have seen the rewards listed this way. .

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about sticker shock! That doesn’t even touch college tuition.

But $160,140 isn’t so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

* $8,896.66 a year,
* $741.38 a month, or
* $171.08 a week.
* That’s a mere $24.24 a day!
* Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is don’t have children if you want to be “rich.”

Actually, it is just the opposite. What do you get for your $160,140?
* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
* Glimpses of God every day.
* Giggles under the covers every night.
* More love than your heart can hold.
* Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
* A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
* A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites.
* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to:
* finger-paint,
* carve pumpkins,
* play hide-and-seek,
* catch lightning bugs, and
* never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:
* keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,
* watching Saturday morning cartoons,
* going to Disney movies, and
* wishing on stars.
* You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay or Mother’s Day, and cards with backward letters for Father’s Day.

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for:
* retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,
* taking the training wheels off a bike,
* removing a splinter,
* filling a wading pool,
* coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness the:
* first step,
* first word,
* first date, and
* first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you’re lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, So . . one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price!!!!!!!
Love and enjoy your children and grandchildren!

Since I work at Hoag it was not a stretch for me to leave work, in actuality I was at work. I can’t describe the thoughts going through me waiting for Justine and Jesse to arrive at the ECU. Justine had a slight pinch of panic in her voice that told me this was serious. He wasn’t having signs of Croup as mentioned in the last entry, he was experiencing abdominal pain. Constant crying while pulling is legs up towards his chest. But then again, he gets to admitting and he is flirting with all the nurses, or should I say they are flirting with him. He is having big laughs with the nurse, she’s tickling him and he is loving every moment of it. Mom and Dad are looking at each other wondering if everyone thinks we are the type of parents that bring their children to the ECU at the drop of a hat. Well… this time our doctor sent him, even she was convinced there was something wrong.

Finally we see this old hunched over poor excuse for a doctor. Justine had specific instructions – Get blood tests done and he “may” be dehydrated. This doctor was so lousy that I hope I never get sick and stuck with him.
Stupid Questions He Asked:

1. Did you give the baby peptobismol? Who in there right mind gives a 4 month old pepto…
2. He asked Justine the same question 5 times. Something like, are you breastfeeding? Every time Justine would answer him, you could tell he wasn’t paying attention. Maybe that why he asked 5 times?
3. Justine brings a dirty diaper to have the stool examined. Doctor says, “That’s no good I can only check for blood in the stool.” After finally getting our pediatrician on the phone, who in turn has a discussion with the ECU crock, the crock is getting one of his nurses to dig the diaper out of the BIO Hazard waste dump. This guy was a real nightmare, I don’t even want to talk anymore about him.

So after a while nurses come in, hold Jesse down, and put an I.V. in the top of his hand. This kid has never felt pain before and his cries tore through my very soul. Justine was over his head and I was to his left. I looked at mom and she is balling, it took every bit of strength I had not to cry. I didn’t want to give him a sense something was wrong. The nurse was great, she got the needle in the first time, drew blood, and placed him on an I.V. Mom, Dad, and Son stayed in the ECU for the next hour and a half waiting for the results of his labs.

Test came back (even the stool test) and wouldn’t you know it, nothing wrong everything is normal (thank god). They chaulk it up to some type of stomach virus, you are free to go home. So we did and Jesse cried the whole way home!!! That figures.

I’m not answering the bell for round three…

We’ll I get a call from Mom on Friday (April 11th) stating that Jesse is making strange breathing sounds and has a bad cough. So I meet them at the Doctors office and sure as s41t, Jesse is not exuding any symptoms. Just like work, someone calls me with a computer problem, I visit the client, the symptom strangely disappears. The doctor examines him, finds his breathing normal, but discovers his throat looks red and diagnoses him with the “possibility of croup.” What is strange is the croup usually doesn’t make itself present until around the first year of age. Here is the definition of croup:

Croup has an unmistakable sound — a harsh, repetitive cough similar to the noise of a seal barking. Attacks of croup often jar children awake and leave them frightened and gasping for breath. Croup can be scary for parents, too, but it’s usually not serious. At its worst, croup can be treated in the doctor’s office most of the time.

Okay, Mom and Dad are now the proud parents of a barking seal. So they give Jesse medicine and all is well, yet they forgot the lollipop!!!

Today, April 15th, Jesse has his regular doctors appointment. Last time he got his first round of Vaccinations, which I believed changed his personality a bit. Trust me Justine and I are not anti-vaccine extremists but, we both came to the same conclusion that:

A. We need to be well informed parents when it comes to what doctors are injecting into our child.

B. We require the ingredients of each one of these cocktails.

C. We require a doctor to be baby friendly, meaning we want the flexibility to allow for vaccinations to be administered over a longer period of time. Something about giving a baby 6 shots, in which one shot combines 3 vaccines, all at one time seems harsh to me. Plus how have we gone from requiring 9 immunizations in the early 80’s to over 32 immunizations today? (Source: OC Register). We would be interested in your opinion if you would like to use the comment section on this page.

Anywho… here is Jesse’s health report sent to me by email from Mom:

So your son is exactly 15 lbs, 25.5 inches long, and is in the 50th percentile for weight and head circumference, and 75th-90th percentile for length. She said he is big and extremely healthy, and very far ahead on both verbal and motor skills- somewhere around 6-7 months. And she agreed to a slower vaccination schedule. We’ll go back in 2 or 3 weeks for his first shot of the next round, since he is still sick and she recommended no vaccinations for at least 2 weeks. She also said it is ok to start giving him very small amounts (like a tablespoon or two a day) of rice cereal, so he tried some today. Used the spoon by himself- didn’t like the cereal much though.

Looks like all is well, Mom and Dad survived our first sick scare. But I’m not so sure it hasn’t prepared us for round 2…

Just thought I would boast about share with you Jesse’s health checkup and development.

-Dad

Jesse got Vaccinated which consisted of three shots in one thigh, two in the other, and one orally. Mom said he took the first three okay but by the fourth he was fit-to-be-tied.

He weighed in at 12 lbs 1 oz and has grown to 24″ in length, so much for the first set of newborn baby clothes.

He is 9 weeks old and has the strength of freight train. Okay I’m embellishing a little but that is what parents do, I’m no different. Characteristics as of 9 weeks:

• Holding head up – actually has been doing this since day one.
• Alert – recognizes objects, grasps objects, and turns head toward sounds.
• Self soothes – is able to suck on fingers but has not yet figured out how to suck his thumb.
• Strength – pushes self up when on his belly, grasps parents thumbs and can pull himself up in either a sitting or standing position. His legs do support his body weight but still can’t balance on his own. He is able to roll over on his side and stomach.
• Baby talk – Making cooing baby noises and tries to speak.
• Smiles and many other facial expression. He doesn’t always look grumpy as he did. He has exhibited laughter but not as much as Mom and Dad would like. In time…

Jesse James Nixon Hamrick V

DOB: 12/17/2007
Time: 9:46 PM
Weight: 7lbs 12oz
Height: 21″
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue/Green (so far…)

Father: Jesse Nixon Hamrick IV
Mother: Justine Burgess Hamrick

Jesse was named after his Grandfathers:
Jesse Nixon Hamrick III
-and-
James Samuel Burgess