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.