Good Eyes

Grandpa visited Henry last night. We changed out his cannula tubes and gave him a little break from the tubes, which was nice for everyone. Jeff gets very happy when Henry's face doesn't have duoderm and cannula tubing on it.

Henry had an appointment with Dr. Hassan at 9AM. The Wilmot Clinic was very crowded again. It took us awhile to see the doctor. Basically, nothing new to report. The blood tests weren't back yet. Dr. Hassan said that he thought Henry looked healthy. We have another appointment with Dr. Hassan in 6 weeks.

We stopped by Lovin Spoonfuls for breakfast around 10:30AM. It's a vegan restaurant that we frequent. We suspected that it would be empty at that time, and it was. Then, we headed home for a brief respite.

We headed out the door at 12:15PM for our 1PM appointment with Dr. Banuelos, the ophthalmologist. A woman named Sonia (also the mother of a 25-weeker) did the initial check. She put drops in Henry's eyes and then was gracious enough to set us up in another room, rather than sending us back out to the waiting room (which was filled with people). As a preemie mom, Sonia understands the concerns about RSV. It is nice not to have to explain the situation. Most people don't get that preemie parents aren't being "overprotective" by keeping their preemie children under 2 away from crowds. It is following standard medical advice backed by research. Just as you wouldn't take a cancer patient into a room filled with germs, you don't do it to a preemie with chronic lung disease either.

Dr. Banuelos didn't know that we were waiting in a different location, so we actually got a little behind on her rotation of patients. Once she found us, she showed Henry several toys and watched the tracking of his eyes. She said that Henry has astigmatism and will need glasses down the road. She looked at Jeff and me and said, "I'm guessing that you both got glasses in 7th grade." Indeed, she had that one on the money. "Given your eyes, Henry will probably need glasses earlier than you did. Probably around 1st or 2nd grade, but I don't have a crystal ball to tell you when. He will be nearsighted." Other than that, she said his eyes look good. She asked how old he was "adjusted." I said that he was around 3.5 months. She said that his eye tracking is slightly advanced for his adjusted age...not super advanced like a 6 month old or anything, but just slightly ahead of what she would expect from someone his age. Henry was pretty mellow during the exam. He was very taken with Dr. Banuelos' toys. She asked us if he was always that calm. We laughed. I guess she didn't hear Henry talking up a storm when we were waiting. He became rather mad, because I had forgotten his bottle, so he had to nurse from me directly, and he didn't really want to do that. But Jeff and I agree that he is a focused kid. On the whole, he isn't unreasonable. Dr. Banuelos wants to see Henry in a year, unless of course his eyes start straying or becoming crossed. We left the appointment feeling good. She's clearly a doctor who enjoys her work.

We didn't get home until 3PM. We fed Henry, who ate a record high of 135 mls in one feeding. We then got ready and headed out the door to my parents' house. We dropped Henry off around 6:15PM. Then, Jeff and I went on a date and saw "Enchanted." Henry was sleeping when we arrived back at the grandparents'. Grammy bought him some 6 month old clothes and a bouncy seat for their place. We got back home around 10PM. It has been along day.

Super Noggin

We went to UMC today to get Henry's blood work done before his appointment tomorrow with Dr. Hassan. Dr. Hassan had ordered a basic metabolic panel and an alk-phos test with electronophensis analysis. We left the house early and arrived at the UMC lab at 7:15AM. It was a good time to go to the lab. Only two people were ahead of us in line at the desk. Then, we waited in the waiting room for about 15 minutes. They had a beautiful salt water fish tank that we watched while we waited. Once called into the lab, we went into a room that had four people in it. I gather that given Henry's size, they decided that the supervisor should draw Henry's blood. He did a fantastic job. While I understand the need for students to practice on patients, I feel like Henry has already contributed enough as a test subject, so I was very happy that the most experienced person in the room drew his blood. Given the tests, he actually had to go into Henry's left arm with a needle, rather than do the heal stick, because the tests required more blood than a heal stick could provide. Henry wasn't happy about being stuck of course, but it was a much more efficient experience than what we've had at Sonora Quest Labs, so Jeff and I were pleased. At Sonora Quest, we always start off with someone who is inexperienced, then move onto someone with slightly more experienced, and then they resort to the big guns, when all else fails...meaning that Henry is often stuck several times before a viable sample is taken. After our last two Sonora Quest experiences, we have made sure to tell whoever is drawing the blood that he's a difficult patient and his veins are likely to blow.

We stopped by the NICU briefly to see if Joyce was around. Alas, she wasn't on duty today. Next time, we'll email Joyce ahead of time and plan our trip to the lab around her work schedule. I suspect we'll use UMC again when Henry needs lab work, because it was such a good experience (for lab work, that is). We got to see Michelle, Shelley, and Penny, which was nice.

We came back to the house for about 40 minutes and then headed out the door to the pulmonology appointment with Dr. Brown. The waiting room at the Wilmot Clinic was packed, which was a first. The nurse took Henry's measurements. He weighed 13 lbs 5 ozs. His head circumference was 40.7 cm. And, his length was 23.25 inches! According to the charts, that means that his head is just under the 50th percentile on the preemie charts, his weight is midway between the 25th and 50th percentile marks, and....drum roll...his length is almost touching the -1 standard deviation mark! This is the first time that his length has made it well into the bands of normality for his adjusted age. When his head circumference, height, and length are plotted on the regular growth charts for boys (from the CDC) for his adjusted age, his head circumference is at the 25th percentile, his weight is above the 25th percentile (about a third of the way between 25th and 50th), and his length is at the 10th percentile. We are pleased that he has made it onto the regular charts so quickly for a preemie. We weren't surprised that his head has done well (he does have a Super Noggin), but we were so surprised by his length. Way to go, Henry! We suspect that sleeping is really making a difference for him.

The appointment with Dr. Brown went well. Henry was in a great mood. He laughed when the first nurse checked his lungs with the stethoscope. And, then Dr. Brown did a thorough lung check with two stethoscopes, which Henry also found very funny. After Dr. Brown's check up, a nurse whom we hadn't seen before did the pulse-ox check. It took a really long time because Henry kept moving around. With his oxygen on, he was at 100%. Without oxygen, he was 96%-97%. Dr. Brown came back to consult with us. Under normal circumstances, he would simply send Henry home without oxygen, because things look good. But given Henry's history, he wants to do an overnight study again with Henry off oxygen. Hopefully, the brain trust at Schaller Anderson won't reject the overnight study again. If they do, we'll fight them on it. Henry's not coming off oxygen unless we are sure that it is safe. I told Dr. Brown about how Schaller Anderson refused last time to pay for the overnight study last time, but Dependable Home Services picked up the tab, because they felt sorry for Henry. He wasn't surprised. He said that he once ordered an overnight study for a patient, which was rejected by the insurance company. So he then ordered a sleep study (an in-patient study), which the insurance company accepted. Ironically, the overnight study would have cost $100-200. The sleep study cost $2500. We really, really, really don't want to go back to the hospital for a sleep study, so I'm hoping that the claims department at Schaller Anderson does the right thing. The overnight study would be more cost effective for them and safer for Henry (the last thing Henry needs is to spend time in the hospital around sick people during RSV season).

Right now, Henry is snoozing in his Grammy's arms. He has had a busy day.

A Good Thanksgiving Weekend

Henry continues to grow. His weekend weights were...
Friday (11/23): 12 lbs 13.5 ozs
Saturday (11/24): 13 lbs 1 oz
Sunday (11/25): Didn't weight him
Monday (11/26): 13 lbs 5.5 ozs

The weekend is actually a bit of a blur. On Friday and Saturday, I tackled the mountain of mail that we've been collecting since Henry's birth. We've, of course, been opening mail that looks critical (e.g. the electric bill), but we have just piled everything else. I realize that this goes against the Better Homes approach to household management, but when Henry was in the NICU, the only thing that matter to me was his survival and quality of life. The mail pile just kept growing, and frankly, we didn't want to deal with it. We didn't have time when Henry first came home. Over the past month, with Henry actually sleeping two hours here and there, we've had more time to get our lives back in order. So, Thanksgiving weekend was the time to go through 6.5 months of mail. I organized a good part of it. That was pretty much how I spent my non-Henry time on Friday and Saturday. Jeff did a bunch of things around the house on Sunday, while Henry and I were at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Aunt Carolyn went back to Washington on Friday. Jeff spent a good part of the day fixing the laptop I borrowed from my mom. It started acting wacky, so he had to wipe it clean. I'm just not having a good semester with computers. Henry had a good day. He really liked the new bouncy seat. Grammy came in the afternoon. He looked super cute in one of his Mickey Mouse outfits. Grandpa came in the evening. He slept well in the evening.










On Saturday, my dad visited in the evening. I think that my dad likes coming over especially when there's a sporting evening going on. He had Henry watching Missouri vs. Kansas. Henry apparently was playing rather vigorous with his Mr. Moose toy. Mr. Moose is currently recovering from major whiplash.







On Sunday, we went over the the grandparents' house. Jeff and I had breakfast together at Tohono Chul Park, which was nice. Then, Jeff went back to our place to do yard work and replace several light bulbs that went out in the living room. Quite a challenge because they were recessed lights, and our ceiling is rather higher. I worked on various things. Jeff returned to my parents' house at dinner to watch the Wildcats come really close to beating Kansas. Henry had a good day eating a lot and playing on his Jungle Mat.

Today, Henry had a good morning with Grandpa. And he had a good nap on Grammy in the afternoon. He was eating well. When I got back from school this evening, he was sacked out on Jeff's lap. Jeff just put him to bed. I'm not a fan of Mondays as I spend the day preparing for class and then have class in the evening, which means very little Henry time.

All in all, it was a good weekend. I can't say it was particularly relaxing, but it was good to check things off the "To Do" list.

Oh, I wanted to add one thing to our "Giving Thanks" list, which Jeff did a nice job on. I am thankful that I have a wonderful partner. Jeff is an amazing spouse and a super terrific dad. My favorite part of the day is when Jeff is holding Henry and Henry smiles up at Jeff. They are really cute together.

Giving Thanks

Yesterday was Henry's first Thanksgiving. This holiday has never meant so much. We want to share what we are thankful for this year.

• Henry, of course. He's truly a miracle. With what he has been through and the odds that have been against him, it is amazing to see him as such a happy and healthy boy.
• Our families. Everyone has been so helpful and supportive. We are so thankful we moved back to Tucson and now have the support of Kate's family. If we were still in Philly, I don't know how we would have been able to cope.
• Our friends and well wishers. From our closest friends to people known to us through six degrees of separation, we are thankful for your thoughts, prayers, and gifts.
  
• The NICU staff. While we may have had some gripes while at the UMC NICU, overall they did an amazing job. We especially are thankful to the nurses and nurse practitioners. They were all incredibly proficient and professional. The dream team of Kathy, Joyce, and Holly went far beyond the call of duty and really made a positive difference in our lives at an incredibly difficult time.
• Modern medicine. How is it possible that a child can survive when he only weighs 1lb 4oz and skips the entire third trimester? Through countless hours of hard work, strangers dedicated to furthering medicine have prevented us from experiencing the grief we likely would have experienced if Henry had been born only a few years ago.
  
• Our employers. Both Kate and I have had incredible support from workplaces not only while Henry was in the hospital, but since he has come home as well. We have constant doctor and other appointments. The flexibility of our work has relieved some of the stress that could easily arise from trying to juggle career and home.
• Life. Henry's situation has given us new perspective on the fragility of life in general, not just Henry's. We are thankful for our physical health, our wonderful environment, family, friends, pets, and the great many things we shouldn't take for granted but sometimes do.
  

Returning to our regular blog format, this is how the rest of the day went. In the morning we took a longer walk than normal after sleeping a bit later than normal. Henry is continuing to sleep for several hours at a time at night which is fantastic. Henry weighed in at 12lbs 12oz.

We headed over to the grandparents house for dinner around 4pm. Kate's two sisters and their significant others were there. We met Erin and Brian's dog Wembly for the first time. He is a very energetic little guy and managed to get Roger to play with him. Marley didn't want anything to do with him and tried to attack him when he tried to initiate play. She's such a party pooper.

Dinner was great. It was nice to see everyone, and thankfully no one was sick. Henry was rather fussy through the afternoon and it continued through dinner. We took shifts trying to console him in a bedroom away from the dinner table. Finally, he went to sleep on Grandpa after dinner while sitting in from of the tv watching ASU lose to USC in football. Henry seems to be an avid sports fan already.

Henry Gets Synagis Shot (Round 1)

It finally happened. We went to Henry's secondary pulmonologist, and he received his first Synagis shot. He'll be receiving this shot once a month through April. This is the shot given to minimize complications from RSV if he were to contract it. Before the shot, he was weighed at 6 kgs with his outfit and diaper on. We thought it was way too high an estimate. Carmen, the person giving him the shot, said that there would be no side effects. We were skeptical. Going in, the shot was significantly more painful to Henry than the flu shot. With the flu shot, he just peeped when the needed went in. This shot had a lot more fluid in it. So it hurt more. It took me about 5 minutes to calm him down. Then he was fine.

We spent the morning and afternoon playing. I gave him another baby massage. We headed over to my parents' place in the afternoon. My mom had been cooking all day, preparing for today's feast. So we figured that we'd come to them. We went for a walk around dusk.

Around 8:30PM, I ran out to Babies R Us to get an Angelcare monitoring system for the crib at my parents' house. I also bought Henry a bouncy seat. When I got back, I set up the system. It looks like it will work well. It has a sound feature, which has a range of 300 ft. Henry got a little cranky in the evening. It may have been the shot, or perhaps he hadn't napped long enough. He finally sacked out on my mom. Then, we moved him to the crib for the real test of the monitoring system. Everything seemed to work well. We then headed home.

Henry had a good night. He slept from 10PM to 1AM. As soon as Henry cried out, I went straight to the kitchen to fix the bottle, and Jeff got Henry out of his crib and changed him. Then, he fed Henry while I pumped. We managed to get Henry feed and back to bed relatively quickly. Then, we repeated the process at 4:30AM. It is so nice being able to get 2.5 hours straight sleep. The feeding/changing Henry every 2-3 hours overnight is such a HUGE improvement over his first months home!






We slept later than usual this morning. We didn't go out for our walk until after 9AM. We took a longer route than usual (the Peregine loop). Henry feel asleep about one-third of the way and stayed asleep until we got home. He has had a good morning eating and playing. He weighed 12 lbs 12 ozs. His weight yesterday was 12 lbs 15.5 ozs on our scale. He tried out the new bouncy seat and loved it. It has a play bar on it; when a dangling animal is hit, the waterfall lights up and music starts playing. He had a lot of fun. Other than that, he's been watching football with his dad, which is where he is now. We'll head over to my parents in a few hours for Thanksgiving dinner.

Hungry Henry Wrestles Spunky the Dog

Henry was worrying me over the weekend with his lack of appetite. Basically, things were going in the inbox but not coming out the outbox, which lead to a significant decrease in his food consumption. Plus, the flu shot had a much greater impact on him than we had anticipated. For me and Jeff, the side effects were minimal, so we didn't really think much about getting the shot for Henry (other than the thimerosal issue). Anyone who is taking care of Henry has to have received the flu shot (standard doctors' recommendation for preemie families) in order to be around him. The side effects started wearing off on Monday. Henry ate over 27 ounces of milk on Monday. He was on a slow pace overnight, but he picked it up substantially today during the day and early evening.

On Monday morning, we went for a walk. Grandpa Kenski visited Henry in the morning. Judith from the Blake Foundation visited around 11AM with Henry's new coordinator Tara. Tara works for the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD). We worked out the goals for Henry's progress. It looks like she'll be his developmental therapist in addition to being his coordinator. Plus, his occupational therapist (OT) will visit twice a month (it will most likely be Cuyler, whom we liked very much). Tara is also going to have a physical therapist (PT) come once or twice a month to work on his gross motor skills. We'll also be having visits from a nutritionist and a massage therapist. Our house will be a very busy place. The good news is that they come to us, which is a huge relief. We already travel around to a lot of doctors appointments. I couldn't imagine adding 6 more appointments into the mix if we had to go to them. We do it, of course, but I'm very glad that they come to our home instead.

On a side note, my friend Brenda who lives in NJ was telling me that some of the mothers that she knows in her area have lied to the state's early intervention program (EIP) to get the free services for their kids. EIPs were designed to help kids "at-risk" and yet there are people who lie about their kids development (claiming their kids are way behind on certain skills) to get the extra boost from therapists. Apparently, several of the therapist oblige because they'd rather spend their time in the nice neighborhoods of NJ rather than working in Camden, which has a lot of at-risk children. I have to say that as a mother of a child with special needs, the conversation made me sick. It took a really long time to get the ball rolling for my child who does have special needs. The problem is that the EIPs are overloaded with cases. To think that there are such selfish people out there clogging up the system makes me mad. It makes me wonder how some people can live with themselves. Sigh.

We got a call from Walgreen's in the morning. They said that they had just mailed the vials of Synagis to the pulmonology office. I called the pulmonology office to inquire about when the mail arrived because Henry had an appointment scheduled for Tuesday at 8:30AM. It seemed unlikely to me that it would arrive on time, and I was certain that the office wouldn't call us ahead of time to make an obvious reschedule. At my request, we are now rescheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday) at 8:30AM. The vials should have arrived today.

We had some good playtime on the floor on Monday morning. Henry played a lot with Spunky the Dog. Henry and Spunky had a wrestling match.








Believe it or not, we completely forgot to weigh Henry on Sunday. I think that we have been weighing him at home each day ever since we got the scale. He weighed 12 lbs 11 ozs on Monday and 12 lbs 10.5 ozs today. His weekly gain was the smallest we've seen in ages. But considering that he wasn't eating as much, it wasn't terribly surprising.

Grammy came on Monday afternoon. Henry was very talkative. Then, he crashed. I left for school in the late afternoon. My mom turned Henry over to Jeff. Henry slept through the evening walk. He spent "Boys Night" eating and sleeping, while Jeff watched basketball.

It was brisk this morning (around 50 degrees) on our walk. Henry was awake through the entire trip. Henry and I played on the floor a lot this morning. I gave him a massage. He was incredibly talkative and delightful as usual. He spent some time in his swing. We sat out on the porch for awhile. He was in a great mood all day. Grammy came in the afternoon. She and Henry had some long conversations.







We went for our evening walk. When we got back, I fed Henry a bottle, while Jeff went to the grocery store. Henry was staring at me intensely while he ate. He smiled every time that I told him I loved him or told him how handsome he was. Grandpa came in the evening. He spent time with Henry on the couch watching the Suns game. Henry passed out during the last part of the game.

Henry 360

This past week has been a week of self-awareness for Henry. Developments this week include:
(1) paying more attention to his hands than before,
(2) moving around the crib,
(3) rolling from side to back to side to back,
(4) sucking his thumb,
(5) staring at his feet,
(6) holding his head at 90 degrees when he's on his tummy; he doesn't seem to hate tummy time anymore, and
(7) staring at himself in the mirror with more focus than before.






Henry still isn't eating quite as much as he did pre-flu shot. We don't know if his lack of appetite is related to the flu shot, his digestive issues, or is just a phase he's going through. We continue to take walks in the morning and evening. Yesterday, Grandpa came over in the afternoon. We weighed Henry at 12 lbs 12 ozs. I went to school to see if the information on my laptop had been backed up appropriately. When I came back home, Jeff reported that after a series of events, Henry was reweighed at 12 lbs 9.5 ozs. Hopefully, he feels better.

Henry was really fussy last night. Normally, we know what the problem is. He's bored and wants a change of scenery. He's hungry. He's wet. There was nothing that we could do to please him for about half an hour. After trying to play with him on the floor, however, I realized that he wanted to watch television. I tried to block the path to the television with my body. He was annoyed that I was preventing him from watching the end of T3. I was glad that the television distracted him, but I'm not exactly thrilled to use the television as a soothing device. So, we are going to keep the television off more often. We actually don't oppose him watching some television. Our concern is the type of programming, specifically the editing. We don't want him watching programs that have a lot of fast cuts, as we think this is cognitively confusing...at least for the developing mind. I don't actually oppose him watching football (although I personally find it an uninteresting sport). There are scene changes, but for the most part, they are relatively slow. I have told Jeff that Henry can watch sports, provided that he talk to Henry throughout the games to tell him what's going on.

After much fussiness, Henry passed out on me. We put him to bed by 9PM, where he slept until after midnight.

Henry was a rather "active" sleeper in his crib. His head pretty much stayed in the same place on the mattress, but he's body worked itself all of the way around (360 degrees). Very excited that he's moving more. He's turning himself on his side. But I'm a little bit concerned about him getting tangled in his oxygen cords. In fact, there was one time during the week when Jeff found the oxygen cord around his neck (loosely). We know it wasn't there long, because Henry had just been put in his bassinet, but that's obviously a problem (especially as Henry starts moving more). Just another reason why we really, really hope that he'll be far enough along with his lung development to get rid of the oxygen at the end of the month!

Jeff put up a box on the side of the crib that has buttons that trigger lights and music. Henry had a good time kicking the buttons and turning on the show. He's getting to be such a big boy.

After a beautiful but brisk walk this morning, we headed off to the grandparents, which is where we are now. Aunt Carolyn came back in town yesterday. She was here when we arrived. She hadn't seen him since the beginning of August. She got to hold him for a while, which was nice. Then, Aunt Erin came by and got to see him while he was on his Jungle Mat. Jeff and I went to breakfast. Came back. Jeff's asleep now. Our game plan is to use Sunday's as sleep catch up days. I unfortunately have a lot of work to do. So I'm currently taking a break by writing this blog entry. Henry is on Carolyn's lap enthralled with his feet. She fed him a bottle and changed him. Go Aunt Carolyn!







Game plan for the week. Well, we meet with Henry's new development coordinator through the Developmental Disabilities Division on Monday. Then, on Tuesday, we have the Synagis shot scheduled (hopefully, the third scheduled appointment is the charm...they've cancel the prior two at the last minute).

Children's Pulmonary Specialists had canceled his appointment for last Friday (11/16) because they hadn't ordered the shot because they claimed that the insurance company had only faxed approval on Thursday (11/15). According to Rhoda at Schaeller Anderson, approval had been granted on 11/9; in fact, she called us that day to say that it had been approved. Did Schaeller Anderson wait 6 days to fax the doctor's office? I don't know. Somebody's full of fill-in-the-blank. My opinion is sufficiently low enough of both Schaeller Anderson and the staff at Children's Pulmonary Specialists to not know whom to believe. The brain trust at Schaeller Anderson was the one to deny the overnight study of the pulse-ox (which was ordered by the pulmonologist to determine whether or not Henry could be taken off oxygen safely). As I pointed out to Rhoda, Schaeller Anderson will have to continue paying for oxygen if the appropriate tests aren't done because there's no way in hell I'm letting him off oxygen until I know its safe. She said, "Well, that's the doctor's call." I didn't bother pointing that it had been the doctor's call to order the denied overnight study (thanks again to the good folks at Dependable Health Services for lending us the equipment and eating the cost themselves). I also don't trust the brain trust in the front office of Children's Pulmonary Specialists. They were going to call me back "right away" Thursday afternoon, which meant Friday mid-morning. They were also the ones who didn't have the foresight to cancel our first scheduled Synagis appointment on 11/2 until Jeff and my dad had arrived with Henry and waited 10 minutes in the waiting room; they should have known that the insurance approval had not gone through, the shots hadn't been ordered, and informed us the day before the appointment. In talking with them and trying to track down when they supposedly sent things to Schaeller Anderson, I have found some of their claimed "time line of events" questionable.

OK. I'm off my soap box (for now). Back to work.

Good Day, but Not that Hungry

Henry's appetite has diminished significantly the last few days. It started before the flu shot. Over the last two days, Henry's intake has been small. I don't think he even drank 20 ozs today.

We had a nice walk in the morning. Grandpa joined us on the walk. Grammy came in the afternoon, while I went to school. I had extra office hours today, because there's a lab paper due on Monday. Two students showed up. As usual, it is the students who know what they are doing who come to office hours; they just needed some validation that they are on the right track, which they were. The SBS tech guys came for my laptop. But I had problems backing up the data, so they are going to pick it up Monday. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a backup done. I went to a talk on negative advertising in Latin America, which was held by the political science department.

While I was out and about, Grammy had Henry do some tummy time. Jeff said that Henry was looking really good. He's almost holding his head at a 90 degree angle to his body. And Jeff said he didn't hear him screaming in protest, which is nice.

At some point in the day, Jeff told me that Henry had been staring at his hand. He had been grabbing one of his toys. Staring at hands is a good thing. Another step in his development.

When I came home, Henry and Jeff had already gone out to take the dogs for a walk. I managed to find them. Evonne and Hal love seeing Henry. The new hat is a hit!













We gave Henry a bath tonight. He doesn't seem to mind bathes, which is great. He even was OK with washing his "hair." I think that he enjoyed having the cannula off his face for a little while. The duoderm was looking pretty shabby, so we decided it was time for a complete change. Jeff lights up when Henry has all of the tubes off his face (see picture to left of text). It is fun walking around with him when the tubes are off. We finally weighed him tonight: 12 lbs 9.5 ozs.

After the bath, I nursed Henry for a while on the couch. He fell asleep soundly. Jeff just put him to bed in the crib.

Flu Shot Received

Today Henry had his flu shot from the Pima County Health Department. It was a much better experience than I expected. They have a rather stream lined operation, and it wasn't too busy so we were in and out quickly. The people were also very nice and knowledgeable.

Henry did very well with the shot. I was wondering what his reaction would be. We could hear several other babies and children crying. Henry gave a shriek as the needle was stuck in but didn't make a peep after that. I think he has been stuck with so many needles that has built up a high pain threshold.

He didn't eat very much today. I think that may be due to the flu shot, which may have tired him out a bit. Also, the traveling seems to tire him out. We were out for a while when he got the flu shot because we had to pick up our car from the shop and it wasn't ready. We went to a park and had lunch while Henry slept in his car seat on the picnic table. He does very well on car rides, typically sleeping much of the time.

Grandma came in the morning and Grandpa visited in the evening. He weighed 12lbs 8ozs today.

Henry slept on grandpa through the U of A versus Oregon football game. Shockingly the U of A upset an Oregon team that lost their star quarterback early in the game. I tried to watch but fell asleep on the couch as I am becoming more prone to doing.

Roger Helps Out

Henry wasn't a good sleeper last night. I took the first shift. He did OK. Jeff took the second. Henry didn't sleep much at all. He had some digestive issues, which made him a tad irritable.

We went for a walk this morning. Another beautiful day. Henry was wearing a cute outfit that Carmen gave him. Grandpa visited for an hour and a half in the morning. After eating, Henry required a change of clothes. We figured that it was a good opportunity to weigh him. Today's weight: 12 lbs 8 ozs. His next outfit was a gift from his Aunt Jennifer.

After the weighing, I forced him to do some tummy time. He was in a really good mood prior to tummy time. He wasn't too happy about being on his stomach, but then after inching forward a bit, he noticed that Roger (our LabraPitt) was on the floor too. Staring at Roger seemed to distract him from the perceived horrors of tummy time. He spent at least 10 minutes straight on his stomach.

It is hard for us to understand why Henry feels that tummy time is such an awful experience. When he was first born, his tummy was his favorite position. As he got older in the NICU, the nurses didn't put him on his tummy much, unless we requested it. They don't put the babies on their tummies, because they are afraid that parents will adopt this position when their babies leave the NICU. It is one thing to let a child sleep on his tummy when he's being watched 24/7. And it is another thing when babies are at home, because there isn't the same level of monitoring (by people or machines) that there is in the NICU, and the risks of SIDS do increase significantly when babies sleep on their stomachs. I thought that Henry would have been thrilled to get some variety in his positioning. Hopefully, he'll come to appreciate tummy time soon.









Henry and I played around a bit when he was on his back. He continued to be in a good mood. He did a lot of squealing. I tried tummy time again. This time, I placed him in front of a mirror so that he could stare at himself. He did an excellent job. He got his head up high. He has excellent back muscles, but his arm strength is still kind of weak (but it is improving).

Grammy came in the afternoon to watch Henry while I had an NAES conference call. Henry decided that eating and napping were more important that suggestion revisions to the survey. While I was on the telephone, Henry apparently had the mother of all diaper loads. Can't say that I was sorry to miss it. He snoozed for about 3 hours on Grammy's chest (with one brief awakening for a quick bit to eat).

Henry got to play with his new butterfly toy. He was having a good time chewing on it.

We went for a nice walk in the evening. Henry got to wear his new Kenneally designer ware, a blue and white hat. Jeff was hoping that we'd run into someone on the walk so that we could show it off. Luckily, we ran into Evonne, who said how cute he was in it!







Grandpa came back in the evening to spend more time with Henry. Henry was eating up a storm. He was way behind on his eating as of the afternoon. But by evening, he went crazy, consuming much larger volumes of food than we had ever seen in the past. Thank goodness for our stockpile in the freezer!

Tomorrow, our big adventure will be to the Pima County Health Department flu shot clinic. We are a bit nervous about taking him to the waiting room of the health department. Having spent so much time at UMC and being around people with atrocious hygiene and then having our lovely experience in the ER waiting room at UMC after Henry came home, I confess that I have a negative, visceral reaction when I hear the words "Henry," "public," and "waiting room" put together in the same sentence. I'm hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. If it looks questionable, we'll turn around and come home.