Follow the Leader

The baby calf that we took care of in the house for a few hours never did bond with its mama. That means it gets bottle fed twice a day.

It is not a shy little calf-ey either. It will follow you all around. Whether you are in the pen or the yard. And if you don't watch out, it'll come try to get some milk from you! Yikes! They have strong little heads that will butt you between your legs! Haha! Poor Titus got it good a couple times!

Lillie thought it was pretty fun having it follow her all around.

Then we walked around the back side of the barn and found Daddy. He was showing off his new heifers to Simon. Simon thought they were just right!

There they are. Don't they look nice?!

Daddy sure does like his Simon boy!

We all enjoyed the nice weather we had while it lasted! It sure makes us wishful for spring time and summer!!

Little Man Approves

Approves of the nice weather that is!!

We made it outside with the camera today! (Thanks for letting me borrow your camera dad!) Simon finally got to spend some good quality time outdoors! It is usually too cold or too windy or both. But not today!! It was almost too warm in the direct sun =)

He posed pretty well for his mamma. But it was hard to hold the camera and get him to smile and make sure he wasn't gonna fall over at the same time. So the picture above is when Sissy came out to cheer him on! You can see his smile of recognition and his eyes looking at her.

He was happy to see her!

Then his smile just got bigger and bigger!!

We moved over to the red barn and he got to explore the dirt and grass a bit!

It was pretty cute seeing him wiggly his toes and chubby little fingers in the dirt. He didn't mind one bit!

(And thanks to Sheila for the super cute outfit! Who knew when he was born that he'd be able to wear a 12 month outfit at 6 months!!)

Simon 6 month update

Yesterday we saw our primary doctor and Simon had his 6 month regular check up. He weighed 19 lbs, 8 ozs. His height was 28.5 inches! That put him in the 73% and 96% for the percentiles. A big fella!

He was a pretty happy guy for the rest of the evening-even after his shots, but today he has been more crabby.

Today he had a sonogram to check on the mass on his adrenal gland. We were going in with high hopes that it was gone and they could not even find it. All the times we have been in since he was born, it has continued to get smaller, and this would have been 3.5 months since we have seen it.

Unfortunately, it had not gotten any smaller. But it didn't really seem like it had gotten any bigger either. So that was definitely good news. And everything else appeared well from the quick over view. It was just disappointing to hear that it was still there. Of course God still has a plan for our little guy and we are still hoping for the complete resolution of this tumor!

The sonogram technician did her thing, then took the images to the pediatric radiologist to look at. After awhile, they both came back and he wanted to look at it in real time. Since the mass is pretty small it was hard to get a real good look at it. He told me that in the first images he thought that it showed it was a little smaller but he wasn't sure that she had gotten all of it into the measurement. So when they measured again, he thought that it looked like it had not changed. Or if it showed a little bigger it was not significant and possibly because of the way it was measured or what not. It was about 1.5cm by 1.1cm.  He said he would have to take out the images from the last time and compare them.

I'm not sure if the pediatric oncologist will call or our regular doctor will call. But hopefully sometime in the next couple days, they will call and let us know a little more and when they would like to have Simon back in for another sonogram.

I asked the radiologist if he had ever seen one of these tumors where it gets smaller and then bigger. He said that of just the few that he has even personally dealt with, they have all gotten smaller and then gone away. None of them have gotten smaller and then bigger. But he said he has not personally seen very many because it is rare to even see these this early on.

Thank you all for your kind words and for praying for us!

A Cow in the House

Early last Monday morning around 6:30, I had just crawled back in bed after feeding Simon when I saw a strange sight out in the hallway. Matt was hunched over, scurrying quickly to the bathroom with a big load in his arms. I knew he had gone out to check on our herd of cows, that are all supposed to have a calf here in the next few weeks/months. Zethan had actually snuggled into our bed by that time also, so we both jumped outta bed and ran to see what the commotion was.

It was a sweet little bull calf! Matt had rescued it just in time. Its momma must not have liked the birth experience much and decided to trounce the poor little thing. She was shoving it all through the mud and snow and stomping on it. It had a few cuts and wasn't breathing well. Matt washed it off in our tub and then laid it on a towel to warm up in our bathroom. The kids {and I} thought it quite peculiar to use the bathroom with a calf watching us!

He called the vet and then decided to take him in. The vet thought that maybe it had a collapsed lung from the momma cow stepping on it. The vet, shaved a spot on each side of the calf and put a needle in each side to draw out the air that had collected outside the lung. That way the lung could fill up properly again. It should be able to recover just fine! 

It was just so cute, Simon couldn't resist going to visit it.

It didn't take too long and it was up on its wobbly feet. It wanted to check out its living quarters. The poor little thing was just so cute, I couldn't resist letting it visit us in the living room!

It wobbled around and got some of its strength back.

Then he decided he was even ready for a real meal! When Matt first brought him in, we used a drencher to give it colostrum. Which is the first milk a calf needs to get a good start and usually gets from its momma. A drencher is a long tube, that is put down the throat and then you can squeeze the bottle and fill the calf's tummy with warm milk. It helps get the body temperature back up as well. It was super cold from being outside in the mud!

Lillie thought he made a good house pet!

He only enjoyed the house for that morning and afternoon and then out to the barn he had to go. But he likes his hay bed out there too!