I came across this again and although I did write this, I feel it so worthy to be added to the story of Baby Jared, and our family. I'm confident you too will find this heart warming and touching.


The Price of Children

This is just too good not to pass on to all. Here is 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. It's nice.

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140.00 for a middle income family.

Talk about price shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition.

But $160,140.00 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

* $8,896.66 a year,
* $741.38 a month,
* $171.08 a week.
* 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 $160,140.00?

* 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 and flying kites.
* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how
your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140.00, you never have to grow up. You get to:

* finger-paint,* carve pumpkins,
* play hide-and-seek,* catch lightning bugs,
* never stop believing in Santa Claus.You have an excuse to:
* keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,
* watch Saturday morning cartoons,
* go to Disney movies, and
* wish on stars.

You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets

and collect spray painted noodlewreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For a mere $24.24 a day, 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 in history to witness the:

* First step,
* First word,
* First bra,
* First date,
* 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 & enjoy your children & grandchildren & great-grandchildren!!!!!!!

It's the best investment you'll ever make!!!!!!!!!

Let us first start out today by saying that Baby Jared is alive and slowly improving month to month. He is twenty months old now and is doing things that a twenty month old boy does. What are these things you ask, well to start off, he totally loves to attack me with Kung Fu Panda like chopping quickness whenever I am within his ever so extending reach. Sometimes it's just a tap, how ya' doing, sort of hello, to my arm. While other times it's a smack in the head, woah that hurt really bad, can anyone find out where my eyeball is, sort of wake-up call. Jared laughs, giggles, smirks, and holds his right hand up to his mouth to try to emphasis his humor he has inflicted so painfully upon on me. Alas, I cannot be mad at the little guy. Jeepers, he is alive! No anger at all comes from me as I cringe at the pain still encompassing the impact point and surrounding area, should I say areas.

Savannah, Mark Jr., Nalana, and Janae, all his older siblings also find it belly busting funny when Jared practices his ninjitsu on me, and even Amber will start to crack up. To see how Jared's face and whole demeanor just light up the room though is so worth all money one can fathom in my imagination.

Jared also is able to be off his ventilator now for up to nine hours a day. Praise God above! He is able to tolerate the lack of pressure support from the ventilator with no adverse apparent symptoms for this long. This is wonderful. I cannot count the times I have cried out to God through prayers, pleading to Him to grant Jared improvement and allow him to be off his tubing, both digestive and respiratory assisting tubing.

how he loves to ride his Flintstones like feet powered car outdoors in the cul-de-sac upon these mild winter days we've been having. He loves being included in family singing, prayer, book reading, supper, activities of all sorts. And we love to include himtoo. Of course we do, he is our baby boy. He is my son.

So different my priorities in life have become. So more of an eternal outlook has my vision broadened into, since we found out over two years ago that our Jared had a congenital heart defect, and also almost loosing him to deaths' grasp back on Easter weekend and a few other times since then. I have so thankfully come to a new joyous level of gratefulness for my family, for the gospel of Jesus Christ, for His church on this earth today, for a Prophet called of God, even Thomas S. Monson, of whom which is alive even today in this day and age.

I am so grateful for the beautiful and intelligent lady that has choosen to be marriedto me for all time and eternity. She is such a blessing in my life. Amber is a wonderful daughter of God. A women that exemplifies love, and kindness to boundaries undefined by human language. Would she ever admit this? Heavens no. She'll probably get on me for writing such praise of her, she is to humble for acknowledging her divinity and near celestial ways. She is a marvelous mother to our children, whom adore her ever so much.