Sitting Tall

Henry has had a great couple of days. I didn't get to spend much time with him yesterday (Wednesday). I was at school. I had planned to come home right after class, but a bizarre set of events resulted in me locked in my office with two of graduate students, while we waited for the campus police to arrive after a strange man had stalked one of the graduate students (who ran into my office for cover). I called the police. Long story. Everything is fine now. But it was disturbing situation. Michelle, the gal being stalked, handled the situation admirably. Thanks to Steve, my next door neighbor, for doing reconnaissance while we waited in my office. I was glad to get home.

Spent a little time with Henry when I got home. Jeff and I decided to go out for the evening to celebrate the anniversary of our first date 15 years ago. Before we went out, we took the dogs for a walk. We ran into Annie, our neighbor's dog, who had gotten loose. She is getting more bold and ignoring her name. We ended up chasing her down, which resulted in us leaving the house later than expected. We had to change our plans a bit. We dropped off Henry at my parents' house. Then, we went to the movies and saw "Jumper." It was OK. As usual, Jeff goes into movies with higher expectations than me and is often disappointed. I'm pretty entertained with two start movies, so I'm usually not that disappointed. Afterward, we went to an Italian restaurant where we had appetizers and dessert. Got back to my parents. Henry had an active night. He slept well, though, when we brought him home.

Today was a great day. Henry was rather active in the morning, so I gave him a massage around 8AM. He hadn't had one in a while. I'm hoping that Veronica will start doing them with him. She has a degree in massage therapy. At some point, Jeff weighed Henry at 16 lbs 12.5 ozs. Veronica took Henry out for a walk around lunch time. Dorsett called around noon, apologizing for running late. She said that she'd be over within a half hour. I said OK. I decided not to tell her that the appointment was actually scheduled for 2PM. I figured that it would be good for Veronica to sit in on one of Henry's PT appointments, which was made possible by Dorsett coming early.

The appointment was fabulous. Henry likes to show off new skills when Dorsett is around. He rolled onto his tummy and stayed in the prone position for a longer amount of time than usual. Then, he pivoted a 180 while on his tummy. Dorsett was impressed. She put him in a sitting position. He was doing an excellent job catching himself when he tipped to one side or the other. She timed him sitting by himself. 50 seconds went by before he tipped to the point where she had to catch him. A few minutes later, he sat a minute or two by himself. Then, he sat at least 3 minutes by himself. He sat tall and truly had great posture. Dorsett did some work with him on a ball and showed Veronica how Henry's balancing and counterbalancing abilities. Later, she put him on the cylinder beach ball safari toy. He managed to balance himself while reaching up for a string she was holding. Just like her last visit, he reached up high while holding himself upright. Princess, my kitty, enjoyed the PT visit. She and Henry took turns playing with Dorsett's string with beads.

During the visit, she described him as "phenomenal," "confident," "communicative," and "trusting." She said that he was doing things developmentally in the exact order that they should be learned. She said that one could teach a whole class around him since he exhibited classic stages of development, textbook perfect. She said that it would be fun to videotape him. I think that he'd like that. I think that he has figured out what the camera does. I don't know how he learned it. But recently, he has become quite a ham in front of the camera. It wasn't that long ago that he would suddenly become inexpressive when he saw the camera. Now, he smiles and laughs.






















Henry had a LOT to eat after Dorsett left. He drank nearly 6 ozs. Grammy came over and gave him some food. He took a long nap on her. We had a pleasant walk in the evening. Henry came back and ate and played. Aunt Carolyn called and spoke to Henry on the telephone. He looked a bit puzzled by the voice and tried to eat the telephone. While I was on the phone, Jeff and Henry played airplane, which involved Jeff throwing him up in the air and catching him. I wasn't exactly thrilled by Jeff's hands leaving Henry's body (even if it was only an inch away), but Henry seemed to think that the new game was ingenious. Henry fell asleep in his daddy's arms not long after. It was a very busy day, and Henry had worked hard.

Black Beard

Monday went by very quickly. I wasn't around much because it was a teaching day. At some point during the day, Jeff weighed Henry at 16 lbs 12 ozs, which is much heavier than the other day. Either the other day was a bad reading, or Monday's was. We did not weigh him today, so we'll have to wait and see. Perhaps we'll get a chance to weigh Henry tomorrow. Grammy came over in the afternoon. She fed Henry peas. He had fun making a huge mess. Grammy fed him in his high chair in the living room, because Jeff was working (his work area is near the kitchen). I think that's the last time we'll try food in the living room. He flung the top to the peas jar on the carpet. We got new carpet last March. Between the dogs, cats, and Henry, it has already taken quite a beating. Henry looked rather sleepy after our walk; it took us a long time to settle him down though. I don't think he went to bed until 10 or so.

Henry took several naps this morning on Veronica's watch. Grammy came over in the afternoon. Dorsett came for a PT appointment around 3PM. Although Dr. Tsai wants Henry to be seen by a PT once week, the insurance company is being a pain the "fill-in-the-blank." Dorsett's paperwork says that she is approved for sixteen visits, but the insurance company left her a telephone message that said they only approved four, then they want to see her notes, and then they'll decide whether or not she is needed. As if the insurance company penny pinchers are qualified to decide whether or not my son needs physical therapy. These are, of course, the "fill-in-the-blanks" who refused to pay for the pulse-ox study that was needed to get my son off oxygen (oxygen that they were paying for). Ruthless and stupid are a bad combination.








Dorsett worked with Henry on his sitting. He was doing a good job. He is sitting up by himself for several seconds. But if you touch his back and he knows you are there, he'll flop backwards and not bother trying to catch himself. Dorsett let him take a few tumbles, trying to get him to catch himself. She was impressed by the range of motion that Henry has when he is sitting upright. He has the ability to hold his toys up high, which I guess suggests that his balance is getting better. She said that holding toys up high is a more advanced skill than playing with them at lower angles. She got Henry into a crawl position and he did hold his stomach off the ground with his legs tucked under, all by himself. Although his knees magically find themselves in the tucked position with his caboose in the air when Henry sleeps, he rarely puts them in that position when he is awake. In any event, his arms are strong enough to hold up his body. Now, he just has to figure out how to coordinate all the pieces together. It was exciting to see. Of course, I wasn't expecting him to hold his stomach off the ground, so I didn't have the camera ready to catch it. I did get a few pictures of Dorsett lightly holding him in that position.

We went for a nice walk. The weather was great. Our dogs are getting a bit out of control. I think that we'll have to get back to the Caesar Milan basics. Roger has become "Off Road Rog." He insists on tromping through the desert, despite the fact that he always gets cactus in his feet, which wouldn't be a big deal if he'd let us get it out of his feet. But he doesn't let us touch them.

We decided to give Henry prunes today. It hadn't been a week since his last food introduction, but we figured that since he'd already had prune juice several times, it was unlikely that prunes were going to be a problem for him. He was a little perplexed at first, but he took to them faster than he did with the peas. He dribbled them down his chin, so Jeff called him Black Beard.








Grandpa came over tonight. He played with Henry on the floor. Henry started to get fussy, so I gave him a massage, which I hadn't done in a while. He had a bottle and fell asleep on me. He looked so peaceful lying on me.

Tomorrow is Jeff's and my anniversary of the day we first met. It's been 15 years since we were introduced on a blind date. It was at a sorority event called Tie-One-On. One of my sorority sisters was dating Jeff's roommate (his fraternity brother). So how are we going to celebrate? Jeff and I discussed exchanging gifts or just assuming that our love would be enough fulfillment for the day. We've decided to go with the latter. Neither of us has exactly had a lot of free time to get gifts. I'm still trying to get up to speed on my work. Still haven't made much progress on my backlog of email. And now that Henry is really coming along with his motor skills, we are feeling a bit pressed to get this house Henry-proofed as soon as possible. Our wedding anniversary is coming up in March, so perhaps we'll be wild and crazy then, and go out to dinner.

Alright. I'm signing off...

A Nice Day Outside

Jeff took some pictures of Henry with his Aunt Erin yesterday when they visited Grandma and Grandpa's house...













Jeff and I have had a long standing disagreement over the color of Henry's eyes. I have long said that they are brown. Jeff keeps saying that they are gray. My mom asked Erin what color she thought they were. She said that were green, which she later changed to hazel. No resolution on this debate.

Today, we gave Henry a bath in the morning before meeting Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Erin for a walk around Picture Rocks. It is a hike that we take every year around this time in honor of my sister Meagan's memory. Had she lived, she would have been 25 years old on Friday. Erin, my mom, and I hiked up a hill that has a nice view of the city. Jeff walked Henry around the trail that has the Stations of the Cross at different points on the path. We could hear Henry squealing as Jeff walked him around. His squeals echoed against the rocks. It was a beautiful day outside. The temperature was perfect.

We spent the rest of the day at Grandma and Grandpa's house. My parents watched Henry while Jeff and I took a nap. We went for a walk around sunset. Henry is getting big enough to sit upright in his stroller, rather than using the carseat attachment.









We watched a little bit of the Academy Awards. I ended up feeding Henry in the kitchen and then playing with him in the bedroom. He'd already been around the television during the Suns tragic lost to the Pistons in the afternoon, and we really don't want him around the TV that much. Most of the time, the television is off during the day. In the evenings, it is only on when there is a Suns, Eagles, or Wildcats game. Oh, and I did have it on the other night during the Clinton vs. Obama debate in Texas. As far as the Academy Awards go, Jeff and I haven't seen any of the nominees (with the exception of Transformers, a nominee for Best Visual Effects), so I didn't mind not seeing them this year. And, as Jeff observed, Jon Stewart's jokes were so flat that one would have thought the television writers were still on strike.

More Peas, Please!

Henry had a good Friday. He had a few naps during the day. In the afternoon, Grammy came over, and he had a visit from Tara and Cuyler. Tara came a little early and worked with him before Cuyler got there. Then, Cuyler worked with him. I unfortunately did not make it home until the end of Cuyler's visit, because I had an 8AM meeting and then tons of papers to review for my large lecture, which meant that I didn't get on the road until 3:15PM. From what I gathered, Cuyler wanted to see how well Henry would transition out of the sit to a pre-crawl position. She said that he was transitioning very well, and she thought that his hamstrings were a little more relaxed, which is good. We've been trying to stretch out his hamstrings, like she had told us to do on her previous visit. Cuyler mentioned that the pediatric wing is so overcrowded at Tucson Medical Center (TMC) where she works that they are having to transport children to hospitals out of state to take care of the overload. The flu is running through the hospital, so kids who are there for other reasons have ended up with the flu, extending their stays by a week or two. Yikes!










This morning, Henry woke up at 6AM and had a bottle. He seemed alert after his bottle. While Jeff took the dogs for a walk, I decided to put Henry in our bed. Cuyler had mentioned that she thought it would be good if we put Henry on different surfaces, so that he could use his arms muscles against different levels of challenge. Instead of doing tummy time, Henry and I ended up taking a 2.5 hour nap. It was really nice. I have been working a lot of hours this week (often after Henry goes to bed), and I really needed the extra sleep. And it was great having Henry to snuggle with.

I went to school to get some work done in the late morning. I came back in the afternoon. Jeff had been giving Henry a workout. When Henry is on his back, he likes to thrust up his pelvis and scoot backward. Cuyler wants to make sure that we don't let this become a habit. When kids learn that they can scoot backward when on their backs, they become resistant to learning how to crawl. So, whenever Henry looks like he is doing this, we try to encourage him to play with his feet or we pick him up and get him out of the position altogether.

We decided to give Henry a new type of food today...peas! Before giving him the peas, I said to Jeff, "Should we try them before giving them to Henry?" It wasn't really a question. Jeff's response, "No. We don't need to eat them." So I rephrased. "Here, you are trying these peas before giving them to Henry." I thrust a spoonful at Jeff. He thought that they were gross. I tried them and thought that they were fine. Tasted just like one would expect from pureed peas.

Here's Henry waiting with eager anticipation for his afternoon meal. He was so hungry that he started eating his bib.










This is Henry after his first bite of peas. The flavor obviously wasn't what he expected. "What the heck did Mommy just put in my mouth?"










After a few bites, Henry decided that peas are A-OK! He polished off an entire jar!










"Henry really likes his peas," I said. Jeff responded, "Well, this is a kid who drinks Neocate. After that, peas don't seem that bad." True enough.

Jeff took Henry over to my parents' house late this afternoon so that I could continue to get work done. He's still over there now, watching the Wildcats vs. Washington St. game. My sister Carolyn is at that game now in Pullman, WA. We wonder who she is cheering for. Henry was decked out in his UofA wear. Hopefully, that will bring the Wildcats some good luck!

A couple weeks ago, Jamie, Henry's personal fashion designer, sent me some parenting tips. Here's a selection of them...

Smoochfest

The last two days, Henry has given me kisses in the afternoon. It is usually when he is laying on his back, and I'm leaning over him. He grabs my head and pulls me toward him and then kisses my cheek. I think that he was getting a little tired of being the constant kiss recipient. He is so sweet. He has been kissing for awhile now. I have received a kiss before, but it was nice to receive them repeatedly two days in a row.

I was gone at school most of yesterday. Veronica was here in the morning, and my mom came in the afternoon. Henry continues to give Grammy a work out with the Pony Boy game. We took Henry for his walk in the evening, right before the big lunar eclipse. We were excited about it. As it turned out, right before the eclipse, a cloud cover rolled in. Oh well. Grandpa came in the evening. While he and Jeff watched Henry, I took a nap (last nearly three hours from 9-12AM). I had a lot of work to do, so I didn't get to bed until 4:45AM. Henry took a bottle around 2:15AM. He was really hungry, but crashed after the bot. About 15 minutes after I put him back into his crib, the Angelcare monitor went off. Henry was in the middle of the mattress, so I think that he had stopped breathing for a few seconds. He was breathing after the alarm went off. Sometimes he takes a big sigh, and then you can tell that there is a pause in his breath. The alarm goes off if it can't detect movement within 20 seconds.









Henry was a good eater today. He sounded like he was having fun with Veronica. She took him for a walk around lunch time. Grandpa visited in the afternoon, as Grammy was in Phoenix on work. I tried Henry in his Bebe pod, which we haven't used in a long time. He did well in it.







We took a walk in the evening. Ran into Hal, Annie, and Luke. Annie (the exuberant boxer mix) was wearing a big plastic thing around her neck. Apparently, she was in a neighbor's yard on Monday night, tried to jump out of the yard, resulting her getting tangled in barbed wire, and ripping up her stomach. She had to be taken to the ER for surgery. I think that Henry was trying to figure out what was around her neck. He made some cute sounds for Hal.

I watched Henry while Jeff picked up some Chinese for dinner. Henry wore me out. We had a little bit of bottle, but then played on the couch. Played in the Bebe pod. Played on the floor. Went back to the couch. Then back to the floor. He wanted to do it all. Jeff then took over. And Henry eventually fell asleep in Jeff's arms.

That's all for now.

On a Roll

This morning, before Veronica came, I had Henry on his tummy facing me at the edge of the bed. I was on the floor with my arms extended on either side of him, so that he would be forced to spend a little time on his tummy. Well, Henry isn't one to be told what to do. He managed to roll right over my arm on to his back. Henry had a lot of fun today rolling around the living room. Veronica said that he started off at one end of the room and ended up at the other.

I think that it was today that he was making a Da sound. He also said Hi to Jeff when Jeff said Hi to him. He is expanding his vowel sounds. Heh was used a lot today. But variations of Ba, A-Ba, and A-Bu are his favorites.

A couple times today, Henry reached out for me to hold him when he was in someone else's arms. I confess that I loved his attention. Incidentally, it isn't always the case that he prefers me. A good deal of the time he is a Daddy's boy. And he has special smiles for his grandparents. Yesterday, a colleague (Michael Dues) who is a positive, upbeat person asked me if it felt good to be back. I've been spending more time at school this semester than last. I pretty sure that the answer was supposed to be an enthusiastic "yes!", but I hesitated. I had just come from teaching a large lecture of undergraduates, who are already complaining that they can't possibly remember everything I have covered since the start of the semester for Monday's exam. I've never been good at lying. The truth is that while I like my job and enjoy the company of my fantastic colleagues (and I really do have some special colleagues), when I think about the time spent listening to undergraduate excuses knowing that Henry is at home making new discoveries each day, I really hate the thought of missing those discoveries. At least when I'm working at home on data analysis (which is my favorite part of my job), I'm just a few steps away when Henry doesn't something new.

Grammy came this afternoon. Jeff and I took Henry for an evening walk after Grammy left. We ran into Yvonne, and Henry gave her a big smile. We gave Henry another bath tonight in the big boy tub. He loves bobbing up and down in the water. He had a great eating day. I weighed him at 16 lbs 5.5 ozs. We are pretty sure that some of the current weight gain is actually real gain (not just water weight). Henry is beginning to get little ringlets around his wrists, which we haven't seen in a while. Good thing too. He is such an active child. He'll need whatever fat storage he can muster. Once he starts crawling, he is going to be burning up calories like crazy!

Bath Time Fun

Henry went over to my parents' house on Sunday. Before we headed over there, Jeff weighed Henry at 16 lbs 1 oz. We dropped Henry off, and then headed back to our place. We both had lots of work to catch up on. Around 4:30PM, we headed back to my parents' house. Henry had an active day of play with very little napping. I showed Henry the piano. I had shown him it once before, but this time he banged out a tune on the keys. I made dinner while everyone else watched the All Star game...until it got so lame that they decided to change the channel (the so-called All Stars weren't exactly going out of their way for an exciting game). We were exhausted around 9PM and ready to head home. Henry, however, had gotten his second wind and convinced Grammy to play "Pony Boy." Playing "Pony Boy" is like doing arm exercises with a 16 lb weight. Grammy is going to be buff in no time flat.

On Monday morning, Jeff weighed Henry at 16 lbs 3 ozs. Henry was quite vocal in the morning. Jeff thought that Henry was starting to make Ma Ma Ma sounds (just the sounds, not referring to me). Veronica came over. When I came back from school, Jeff reported that Henry was very loud today, making all sorts of squealing noises. Grandpa came over in the afternoon. Grandma wasn't able to come over today because she had taken a very dear friend to the hospital for surgery. After Grandpa left, we went for our evening walk. Henry was pretty active this evening. Although he had rejected a bottle, he got very upset when Jeff brought me dinner while he was on the floor. We've noticed that he gets incredibly agitated when we eat in front of him. Unfortunately, we didn't think that he was ready for french toast and hash browns (tonight's dinner). He half-heartedly took some bottle. He looked really sleepy but did not want to relax. We ended up giving him a bath in our tub. He loved it. That didn't settle him down though. Jeff eventually got him to take some more bottle. He finally went to bed around 9:30PM.

Snoozing After a Hard Day's Work

Henry had a busy Friday afternoon. Grammy came around 2PM. Then, Tara visited around 3:30PM. Dorsett (the PT) came around 4:30PM. Henry was rather tired by the time Dorsett came, so he wasn't really up to doing a lot of physical therapy. Tara had tried to time the visit to coincide with Dorsett. When it didn't look like Dorsett was going to show, Tara did some work with him. But then Dorsett came late from another appointment on the other side of town. Dorsett thought that Henry looked amazing for a 25-weeker. She did recommend, however, that we schedule an appointment with a pediatric neurologist. Although she doesn't see any problems now, micropreemies are at higher risks for all sorts of problems, which often don't appear until later. She thought that it would be good to get a baseline done on Henry now. Besides, in the event that a problem does appear, it would be easier to be seen by a neurologist right away, if he is already someone's patient (rather than having to wait a couple months for an initial appointment). Tara is going to look into this on Tuesday.

Tara left us a copy of Dr. Tsai's evaluation. He tested at a 5-month old level for cognitive and motor skills. He tested at a 3-month old level for speech. Tara said not to worry about the speech score. She said that she couldn't see anything wrong with his speech thus far. He is after all squealing, making rasberries, smacking his lips, and saying A-Ba-Ba-Ba-Da-Ba-Ba. She doesn't expect much more out of a 6-month old.

Henry crashed around 5:30PM during a bottle. He was so wiped out that I took the dogs out by myself. He stirred around 6:30PM to finish his bottle but then passed out again. Grandpa visited around 7:30PM. Henry was sound asleep. I told my Dad that I suspected that Henry was going to be up within the hour. My Dad decided to watch Henry sleep for a few minutes but then left to spend time with my Mom. Good thing he didn't wait around. Henry didn't get up until 2:30AM. Took a bottle and then went to sleep again until 5:30AM. Very unusual.

I gave Henry a massage this morning in front of the fire. At some point, Jeff gave Henry a workout on his cylinder ball toy. The idea is to make tummy time more fun. He's learning how to shift his balance on it.









My Mom came around 9AM, because Jeff and I had some errands to run. Henry was asleep when we got back. He had been playing "Pony Boy" and feel asleep during his bouncing.

In the afternoon, Henry had a spit up episode that involved throwing up on the kitten while Jeff was walking around with him. Apparently, Jeff had a hard time tracking down Bitsy to clean her up. Other than that, Henry had a fantastic eating day. He had rice cereal and sweet potatoes during the day. At one point, he consumed over 6 ozs of breast milk/Neocate in one sitting. That's the largest amount that he has taken at once. He weighed 15 lbs 15.5 ozs. After our evening walk, I made him some avocado puree. He hasn't had it since the whole bottle strike came about. He really liked it. I was worried about the taste because I made it with Neocate, but he didn't seem to mind. The puree was very smooth. A good deal of it drizzled down his chin. Plus, he decided to practice some new spitting skills (oral development). I ended up putting the avocado puree in a medicine cup, and I let him drink it like a smoothie...an avocado smoothie, that is. He ended the day having consumed 865 mls plus the rice cereal, sweet potatoes, and avocado puree.

Jeff just called me into the bedroom. Henry is sound asleep with his caboose in the air. What a cute thing to see! Preemies often do not get into the tucked position quite so naturally as full-term babies, owing to the extra time spent on their backs rather than being curled up in the womb. This has been a very good day indeed.

A Uneventful Day...Thank Goodness

We had a quiet but happy Valentine's Day. Veronica came in the morning. Grammy came in the afternoon with a cute teddy bear for Henry. Henry weighed 15 lbs 14.5 ozs. We went for a walk around dusk. I made dinner, while Henry and Jeff watched the Wildcats beat Cal. Henry was quite active in the evening. Someone at Jeff's work at a crisis (yet another lost data file, blah, blah, blah...why do these people always have computer crises on holidays, weekends, and just about every weekday at 5PM EST?), so he had to spend some time dealing with that. We gave Henry a bath to settle him down. He finally crashed and slept until 6:15AM this morning.

He drank quite a bit of milk when he woke up this morning. He didn't seem to mind our dogs , Marley and Roger, play fighting, which was good. The other night (Wednesday, I think), Jeff was playing fighting with Marley on the bed, while I gave Henry his bottle. The scene scared the heck out of him, and he started crying. Don't know if he thought that Marley was hurting Jeff or the reverse. It didn't take long to quiet him down, once we showed him that Daddy was happy and Marley was happy and everything was just fine. It is interesting how Henry is making judgments about what different actions in his environment mean.

Today was his monthly Synagis shot. They have to weigh him before giving him the shot because it is dosed to weight. He weighed 16 lbs on their scale. The medical assistant giving the shot said that next time, he'll be heavier, so that means he'll have to get two shots instead of one. I wish that Synagis wasn't one of the more painful shots, considering that he has to get it regularly. He did cry as it went into his skin (it is a big shot, so it does take a little longer to inject than the others), but Jeff had him quieted down within a minute. If RSV season ends soon, his next appointment will hopefully be his last Synagis appointment.

Today is a rainy day. I started a fire in the living room for Henry and Veronica. Henry is currently taking a snooze. Dorsett the PT and Tara should be coming this afternoon.

Physical Therapy Visit

Wednesday was another eventful day. Henry's nanny was feeling better but we decided it was best for her to stay away one more day to be sure. So Grandma came over in the morning to care for him and I took over for the rest of the day while Kate was at school. I intended to take the whole day off but there was a crisis at work, as usual. Grandpa visited in the evening while watching the Suns lose to Golden State in a fast paced, high scoring game.

The big event was that Henry's physical therapy was approved and the therapist came for her first real visit. Henry was very impressive. He managed to do things I didn't know he could. He sat on his own for periods of time while holding his feet or having his hands on the floor. We have always had to support him almost constantly while he sits because is so unstable. I was amazed.

The therapist thought he was doing very well and that he was doing things appropriate for his age. She liked all the noise he was making, particularly the raspberry blowing, which she said is part of pre-speach. She also commented that he was very confident and adventurous. She is currently working with a 28 week preemie that is much more reserved and cautious.

She worked with him and focused on working the tummy muscles. She showed me several excercises on the floor and using some props like an inflatable ball. The gist of it is, first make him do push ups to develop his arm strength. Second, make him sit up and force him to use his stomach muscles by tipping him side to side and front to back so that he is forced to balance himself. Nothing too complicated but it is going to take a lot of work. I'm sure he is up for it though.

Tonight was rather odd. He played and ate and fell asleep, which was typical. I handed him to Grandpa who held him for a while. He woke up startled and started screeming. Grandpa couldn't console him so I took him and walked him around to settle him down. I gave him back to Grandpa who tried to feed him a little bit of a bottle that he didn't finish before his nap. He started chocking on it and had a really bad coughing and choking fit and started crying again. His choking and coughing went on for some time. With his Prevacid to treat his reflux his choking has become increasingly rare. However, it seems it can still crop up.

After a while he started playing on the floor. Despite it being rather late he was still very active and wide awake. Recently he had been going to sleep very early. Eventually Kate fed him another bottle but he was still awake. Finally, she rocked him to sleep. Normally it doesn't take that much work. I call him the king of the food coma because he almost always goes to sleep while eating.

He is asleep now. He ate more today than he has eaten in a long time. He weighed 15lbs 13oz which is his new high. We reintroduced sweet potatoes. We had stopped them because he developed a rash. However, the rash has not gone away. The doctors think it is something related to the virus he had last week.

Henry's New Chair

A lot has happened in the last two days. Jeff and I have decided to separate the blog writing. I'll cover what happened yesterday, and Jeff will report today's events.

I took care of Henry yesterday morning, because Veronica was sick. Henry had a great appetite. The big event in the morning was that Henry tried out his new high chair (from the Stitt family). As the pictures show, he is a little small in it, but he really likes it a lot. He had fun sitting and playing with the tray.






We played on the floor. I gave Henry a massage. He weighed 15 lbs 9.5 ozs. He had a bottle, and then I put him in the high chair for a feeding. He ate A LOT.








We had an appointment with Dr. Tsai at the developmental clinic. It was his 6-month check-up. Basically, he did really well, and Dr. Tsai was pleased with his progress. She said that he had doubled his weight since she last saw him. On their scale, he weighed 15 lbs 10 ozs and was 25 7/8 inches in length. His head circumference was 42.8 cm. She went through a series of developmental tests. Cognitively, he is "with it." He is starting to show some stranger anxiety, which is what he should be doing. He was rather suspicious of her a good part of the time. She said that his gross motor skills are slightly delayed, which is not unexpected for a preemie. The gross motor skills tend to be a couple months behind their corrected ages. I don't think that Henry is that far behind, but he does need more stability in his trunk. Treatment: More tummy time. Once his trunk gets more stable, then his gross motor skills will be fine (as well as will be his fine motor skills). She said that because preemie miss out on the time in the womb that should be spent curled forward, their back muscles end up being stronger than their front muscles because of the extra (unnatural) time that they spent on their backs in the isolettes. Solid motor skills require a balance between back and front muscles. She'd like for the OT to work with him once a week. Overall, she said that the tone of his muscles was good. And, she was pleased to see fat around his thighs.

I have to say that Henry wasn't particularly enthused with the tasks that she was giving him. She put two blocks in front of him, but he really wanted her necklace. Then, her assistant started rummaging through a box of toys, which Henry found to be more interesting than the blocks. At first, I think that Dr. Tsai thought he had problems with his "grasping skills." After a bottle, he found a toy on the shelf that he was interested in and gave her a better demonstration of his capabilities. He was very stubborn about tummy time, and I think left the impression that he doesn't have the ability to spend time on his tummy. He can do tummy time, but he is unlikely to do it on command. What can I say? Neither Henry nor our cats will listen to us.

The tummy time remedy wasn't a surprise, of course, as Cuyler had discussed Henry's trunk issues with us last week. We have been doing a lot more modified versions of tummy time to make the experience more fun for Henry (e.g., turning our legs into a tummy time jungle gym, where Henry pushes up at different angles). Dr. Tsai didn't think that Henry's hamstrings were the problem; she was focused on his strong back, which makes him not want to work his tummy. Cuyler attributed the lack of stability when sitting to tightened hamstrings. I suspect that both issues are probably at play. Both women agree that more tummy time will strengthen the trunk. I'm planning to continue with the hamstring stretches, because they aren't going to hurt him (worst case scenario is that I'm spending time giving his muscles a gentle stretch that isn't strictly necessary; best case scenario is that I'm helping stretch and relax those muscles, which will give him better support).

We came home. Henry had a bottle. We went for a walk at some point. Grandpa came over in the evening. Henry crashed for a couple hours, but got up around midnight for a bottle. Then, we all went to bed.

Gaining Weight

Henry turned 6 months (adjusted) today. Today didn't quite go as expected. Veronica came over at 7:30AM. I had a meeting at 9:30AM. Before I left the house, I heard Veronica coughing. I asked if she was sick. She thought she was coming down with something. Ugh. Monday is a teaching today, so Jeff took care of Henry, while I dropped Veronica back at her house before heading into school.

Jeff reported that Henry ate quite in the morning. He weighed 15 lbs 8.5 ozs. I suspect that a good portion of what he lost was "water weight" and that's the weight that he is gaining back rapidly. Jeff gave Henry a workout, which means working on his sitting skills and doing some modified tummy time on his lap. He also took a two hour nap, which allowed Jeff to get some work done. Henry usually doesn't take long naps. Perhaps he is going to have a growth spurt soon.

I got home around 1PM. We went for a walk. Henry got to see Nick and Janice's horses. It is nice having neighbors with horses. You get all the benefits (i.e., looking at magnificent creatures) without the disadvantages (i.e., spending a lot of time using a wheel barrel and a shovel).

Grammy came in the afternoon. Henry spent a good deal of time bouncing up and down (his new favorite thing). Unfortunately, his favorite time to play "bouncy, bouncy" is after having a large meal. Rather than getting sleepy after eating, he tends to have bursts of energy.

Jeff, Henry, and I went for another walk with the dogs in the evening; we helped capture our neighbor's spirited dog Annie (she is a fireball). Henry ate and took a nap. Grandpa came over. Henry looks like he's getting ready for a long snooze on Grandpa's chest.

Veronica called in sick for tomorrow. So, it looks like I'll be spending the morning with Mr. H (as Tara calls him). In the afternoon, we have an appointment with Dr. Tsai, who will assess his development.

Burrito Boy

I'm not sure where the time went today. Henry ate well in the morning. He weighed 15 lbs 6 ozs. We went over to Carmen and Eric's house to pick up a high chair. Their son Dennis (18 months) has outgrown it. Their son Gordon helped carry the high chair tray to the car. We really appreciate all of the clothes and stuff that they have given Henry!

We went over to my parents' house to watch the UofA vs. ASU game. UofA lost. Put everyone in a bad mood. UofA has always been a b-ball powerhouse and rarely loses to ASU. They have lost both ASU games this season. Henry wore some of his UofA wear today. Even Henry's cuteness couldn't save the Wildcats.









When Henry came home, he rolled around on his UofA blanket. We had a receiving blanket on top of the UofA one. He grabbed a corner and rolled himself up like burrito with Henry filling. He also got his caboose up in the air a couple times.

Henry did well on his milk intake today. He was so hungry that he even drank 2 ozs of Neocate without protest. It happened by accident. We usually reserve the Neocate for his rice cereal. Glad that Henry didn't seem to mind it. It had been his fortifier for a long time, so his taste buds must be used to it. His milk/Neocate intake was 721 mls today (24.86 ozs). That's more than yesterday, so we are still headed in the right direction. The night is still young, so perhaps he'll have more. At the moment, he looks pretty darn sleepy, so I'm assuming that he's out (until at least 3AM or so).

That's all for now. Henry turns 6 months adjusted tomorrow.