Riding MY bicycle feeling so free.....

He was a late peddler, it was never something that came easy to him.  He would struggle and struggle, and just had a hard time of it.  It probably didn't help that our driveway way very hilly and there are quite a few cracks in it posing as obstacles to learning.  But over the summer Jackson finally got really confident and fast with riding on his big wheel. He would fly up hills, down hills and would swirl out when turning corners.  Made me miss my big wheel days, actually! Remember those?   But as the summer turned into fall our little man was having one growth spurt after another.  After a while he would have to position his legs just right so his boney little knees wouldn't hit the handle bars.  It was time to trade up!

Grammy and Pop made this happen for Jackson's birthday when they got him his very first big boy real bike and helmet.  What a special way to ring in the big 5!  Jackson has rode on it every single day since he got it, minus a few rainy ones.  Every night we go out on a family bike ride (Jackson rides while we walk quickly behind trying to keep up!) He has gotten SO FAST!

It is an amazing way for our wild man to burn off some of that energy of his.  But it is also an incredibly cool (and incredibly cute for us) way for him to play pretend.  While he is riding his bike waaaaaayyyyy ahead of us (a few driveways) he plays pretend doing his super heros, different voices and all.  He feels he is alone, and no one can hear him.  Oh how we love being able to eavesdrop every now and then.  It is so stinking cute!

Now that he has had the bike about a month, he is definitely braver and loves to try peddling as fast as he can.  Now we just need to work on braking.  He refuses to try using the real brakes and just runs into the grass to stop himself. One of these days he will wipe out- yes I know, I know.  Wipe outs- and lot of them are going to be plentiful in our future.  I just hate for it to happen.  I am such a mom.

The $70 Shampoo.

I took Owen for his allergy test on Wednesday and wouldn't you know it, his skin is in such poor condition the doctor didn't want to do any testing on it.  So he looked him over and sent us home with a handful of prescriptions, a page full of directions and a follow up appointment to come back in one month to do the testing then.  The allergist is giving Owen a hardcore 1 month treatment to hopefully knock this all out of his system.  I'm missing that beautiful baby soft skin that we should be snuggling on right now!   Aw, my sweet angel.

So off we went to our Pharmacy for the 500th time this year- seriously at this rate we will be making our deductible by June.  Well after a little gasp and an "Oh Boy"from Larry the Pharmacist, he gave me a slight heads up that Owen's shampoo was pretty expensive.  By that comment I was guessing it was at least $25- maybe as high as $40.  Never in a million years would I expect $70.90!  And that was with insurance.  If we weren't insured this would have cost us $287.  For shampoo!!  CRAZY.  All of this stuff better work. Total pharmacy bill= $89.70.

Oh, and did I mention that we also need to give Owen a bath twice a day so we can butter him up with his steroid lotion at every bath.  Use his shampoo 3x a week and then give him an oral steroid for the next 20 days.  It is going to be a long 30 days.  But we will get through it.

It is just too bad it costs so much for a baby to feel better.  But you know what, I would go to the moon and back for him if it meant healing.

Whenever I begin to feel overwhelmed I try to remind myself that things could be so much worse.  Through it all he is so happy.  Itchy and scaly- but happy.

Day by day.