Lights and Nose

This morning (Saturday), we got a late start. We ended up going to The Garland for breakfast. They have a small courtyard outside. It was cool but we were all wearing long-sleeved shirts. We were the only ones in the courtyard, which meant that Henry could run around at his leisure. The breakfast was excellent.

Henry came home and took a nap. He was a bit picky during lunch. I took him to my parents' house around 3:30PM. On the way to their house, I was playing a CD of 80s music. One song was a rap song. As I peered in the mirror, I saw Henry dancing in his car seat. This isn't the first time that I've noticed that Henry likes rap. We randomly rotate through the various music stations on our DirecTV. Jazz, Broadway, Latin, Gospel, New Age, Metal, Country, you name it. The other night (Wednesday, I think), we gave Henry the remote and let him find a music station. He chose Hip Hop Nation. He liked some Kayne West song. My one qualm about his liking rap is finding artists that don't use the b-word, c-word, f-word, s-word, don't objectify women, and don't glorify violence. If anyone has rap or hip hop suggestions that meet my qualifications, please let me know.

After dropping Henry at Mimi and Poppy's house, I went to Borders. I figured that DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince would have some songs that would probably meet my criteria. I remember liking the song "Parents Just Don't Understand" as teen. Unfortunately, Borders didn't have The Fresh Prince in stock, so it will have to be an amazon.com order.

It turns out that Henry likes heavy metal too. On Friday, Patti was over to help clean the house. She brought her walkman. Henry got a hold of it. Patti had been listening to the radio, so it was already turned out. Anyway, Henry was holding the walkman when Quiet Riot's "Cum on Feel the Noize" came on, and he started dancing to it.

Mimi and Poppy dropped Henry off around 7:30PM. He had had a large dinner at their place. We played for a little while in the living room. I whipped out the bouncy horse that can be used with a video game on the TV. Basically, when the child bounces on the horse, a picture on the TV will change (like switching from a Lion to a Goat). It's cute. Of course, Henry didn't want to play with the bouncy horse. He found the remote to the video game and wanted to explore the menu options. He figured out that pushing the button changed the menu on the screen. Wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Every time, the cursor lit up one of the options, the TV would say "Action-Reaction." Action-reaction indeed.

Henry played with bath tub paints before taking a bath. He did some painting with his feet. He really got into it. He also enjoyed cleaning up the paints with the wash cloth afterward. While in the bath tub, Henry noticed the lights above him. He calls them "ites."



After his bath, we looked at "Pics!" for a few minutes. Jeff took him to bed. He didn't settle down, so I gave it a whirl. No luck. I ended up putting him in his crib, because he wouldn't settle down but was obviously tired. I let him cry for about 4 minutes in his crib. I'm not a fan of the "cry it out" method. Just doesn't seem quite right to me. I'm much more into the attachment approach recommended by Dr. Sears. However, when Henry won't settle in our arms, and he needs sleep, it seems to me that we need to get him to the point where he can learn to calm himself down without our assistance. So, I figured that we'd try a middle ground approach. Tomorrow night, we'll try for 5 minutes by himself in crib, then come get him. Next night, we'll try to stretch it to 10 minutes. I want him to know that we are here for him, but I also want him to be OK with self-soothing. After 4 minutes tonight, he was very upset, so I got him out of the crib. Settled him down with his bottle, but then of course the bottle ran out. Had to go with Henry to the kitchen. He then saw Dada and was upset that Dada wasn't coming into the bedroom. Nevertheless, I managed to rock him to sleep within about 5 minutes, which was good.

Thanksgiving and Post-Thanksgiving: Quiet Days

On Thursday, we made breakfast. Henry was hungry, so we ended up eating in the kitchen and serving Henry as things were ready. I took Henry to Trader Joe's but the store was closed, so we turned around and headed back home b/c Henry was asleep. Jeff did most of the cooking (pumpkin pie, vegetable jalousie, peeled potatoes). I made a salad (candied the pecans myself, made fresh salad dressing, whipped up the potatoes). Headed to may parents' house where we met up with our friends, Nikki and Dana. It was fun showing Henry off. When we walked into the family room, Henry walked right up to Dana, which he usually does not do. He normally sizes people up when he first sees them. Interestingly, he gave Dana a huge smile when he first met her a couple months ago. So, he doesn't appear to have his usual cautious guard up with her. Later in the evening, Dana asked about Henry, "I know that you are worried about his cognitive development, but is he advanced?" I suspect that he is on his verbal/communication skills, which is not typical for a boy baby (they usually lag behind girls a little bit). And Henry does seem mechanically inclined.

On Friday, Henry got up around 7AM. We wished that he'd slept in, but once he's up, he's up. We had breakfast and played. Henry helped his Dad take the dogs for a walk in the morning. Around 10AM or so, I took him to Trader Joe's for a quick stop. It wasn't crowded at all, which was nice. When we got back from the store, he looked sleepy. I had no success getting him to take a nap that he sorely needed, but Jeff got him to sleep. They snoozed for 2 hours 45 minutes. I tried to switch with Jeff but Henry woke up as soon as Jeff had left. He has a Daddy sensor that let's him know when Jeff is 5 feet away from him or something.

My Dad called in the afternoon to arrange a Henry visit, but we decided to just hang out with Henry rather than go anywhere. But we'll make sure that Henry gets to see Grandpa tomorrow. Jeff, Henry, and I took the dogs for a walk in the early evening. It was cool but nice. I set up some reindeer figures that Grammy gave us. She normally puts them in her front yard but thought that Henry would like him. He does.

He had dinner and a bath. His big thing during meals is to pretend that he is going to share his food but then pop the morsel in his own mouth instead. He "tricked" me several times into thinking that I was going to get some of his strawberries. The "trickster" game has turned out to be a good way to get him to eat. Before his bath, I asked him about body parts. Turns out that he can point to eyes, nose, and feet. We haven't really worked on them actively, so I was impressed. Played in the closet for awhile after the bath. We then played in the living room for a little while, and I read "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" aloud.

His vocabulary is pretty big, and he understands a lot. I asked him a question, can't remember what it was, but his answer was "I know," which was appropriate. Jeff heard it too. I was probably asking him if he knew he was handsome or smart or something like that.

Here's a list of some of the things we know he knows...
He can say the following words:
Mama, Mommy
Dada, Daddy
Boo (as in Bitsy Boo the Cat)
Ball
Bye Bye
Hi
Pool
Book
Tea
Poop/Pee
Turkey
Hat
Bath
Keys
Hot
Dog (comes out as Daw)
Cat
Bot (bottle)
Duck
Up
Car
Truck
Pics (pictures)
Teeth
Black beans
Peas (as in Pea Crisps from Trader Joe's)
Putt putt
Tree
Backpack
Bonk
Rocks
Dis (this)
Milk
Uh-huh (yes)
Poppy (Grandpa)
Mimi (Grandma)
Pepsi ("Pepi" is what Grandpa drinks)
Baby
Happy
Clock
TD (TV)
Eat
Treat (for the dogs)
Done (as in “all done”)
Plate
Eye
Sock (sounds like hock)
Shoe (sounds like hoo)
Uh-Oh
No
Light (sounds like ite)
OK (usually sounds like K)
He is in the process of learning “Please” (sounds like “pee”).

He can identify the following body parts:
Tummy
Ears
Teeth
Head
Feet
Eyes
Nose

He can make the following animal sounds:
Lion
Dog
Cat
Chicken
Monkey
Cow

I'm sure that I'm missing a lot, but that's all I can remember right now. Signing off...

Stair Master

Last Friday Henry had an appointment with the physical therapist Shirley. She brought a basket full of balls to play with. She has been encouraging him to throw balls and he has sportingly obliged. He now is getting dangerous, chucking balls and any other objects he might grab. He has a peculiar style at the moment which is more akin to a discus thrower than a baseball player which results in his best throws typically going backward. I'm now trying to think of the best way to protect our television from random projectiles.

Shirley did not have any particular concerns but will continue to visit to make sure Henry stays on track.

Henry and I spent Friday afternoon and evening playing. He loves to be outside and we spent time walking from the front of the house around to the back and back to the front again. Of course I keep a keen eye out for snakes which are active because it is still so warm.

We went to the Desert Museum on Saturday morning. He fell asleep about 5 minutes from the museum so I drove around the area for about 45 minutes while he napped. When he did wake we had a good time at the museum. He enjoyed walking around and exploring and being social. He met a couple small children who were friendly. Chloe, a 3 year old English girl, helped him up when he fell and seemed to enjoy having him tag along for a little bit.

Henry excels at going the opposite way you want him to. One of the cutest things was when he was walking against the grain on a path and two men were walking by. He stopped, looked at them and said "Hi!" very enthusiastically while waving to them. They both smiled and said "Hi!" back.

I dropped him off at Grandma and Grandpa's for a few hours in the afternoon then returned later for dinner. Aunt Erin was there for dinner as well with her dogs which Henry enjoyed.

That evening Kate came home at 10:50pm. I took Henry with me to the airport and he slept almost the whole way.

On Sunday we went to the U for breakfast, as we usually do on Saturday. Henry loves to walk up and down hills and go up and down stairs. We went to the Old Main building and he went up and down the stairs there several times, which is pretty impressive. He's going to have some serious lower body strength if he keeps it up.

On Monday Grandpa came over in the afternoon. They always have a lot of fun. They spent most of the time outside, which Henry loves.

Tuesday, Henry had a follow up with the Developmental Clinic and Dr. Tsai. She had him play with lots of toys and asked a great number of questions about him. At one point she pulled out a board with holes for pegs in it. He grabbed the pegs and put them in the holes like he had done it a million times. He had been given the same test at the occupational therapist a few months ago and couldn't do it. We had not practiced it since then. I was shocked because his fine motor hasn't seemed that great. When we try to stack rings he has real trouble and shape sorting anything but circles is frustrating for him. But pegs in small holes are no problem, go figure.

She was very impressed, particularly by his ability to mimic actions and his calm demeanor. She frequently has kids in there bouncing off the walls but Henry was very deliberate and easy to work with. She pronounced him graduated from the clinic. We can call her if we need but she doesn't see any need to have him visit anymore and didn't have anything for us to work with him on. It's great news, although it is fun to visit her to show Henry off and find out how things are going at the nicu.

We dropped him off at his grandparents for a couple of hours after that and he had dinner with them. We picked him up around 8pm and he stayed awake all the way home. We gave him a bath and tried to get him to sleep which was a struggle.

Today he was very cranky most of the afternoon. I persuaded him to take a nap at 5:30 for an hour and he was in a much better mood after that. However, he stayed up until 10pm and it took almost an hour to get him to go to sleep.

The big challenge for us right now is sleep. He does a good job of taking a morning nap for Alicia during the week and we keep that up most weekends. I think he would be well served by an afternoon nap around 4pm but that rarely happens. Sometimes at night he seems to want to go to sleep but flops around and can't seem to get settled. It could be something he got from me. Through my childhood until early adulthood it frequently took me a long time to get to sleep. As a child I could spend hours trying to get to sleep and would head bang and roll my head back and forth trying to make myself tired enough to sleep. Hopefully that is not it and we can find a routine that works for him.

We tried to ween him off the reflux meds but are probably going to return to full dose again. His intake is down and he rarely finishes a bottle these days. Maybe this also has something to do with his sleep.

Cute Pic

Nothing too exciting today, just wanted to share this cute picture.

Kate left for Chicago today. We had to get Henry up at 5:30am which he took fairly well. By the time we got home from taking Kate to the airport he was asleep again and slept until Alicia arrived. Kate is homesick already.

Grandma came by in the afternoon and taught Henry to yawn, stretch, and say Cockadoodledo, or something similar.

He took a 3 hour nap this afternoon and tonight was in bed just before 8pm. He hardly ate any dinner. Grandma thinks his molars are really bothering him and I agree. Hopefully they will be all the way in soon.

"Mama Let Me"

Apparently, Henry started constructing sentences (or at least a sentence) over the weekend. Grandpa reported that Henry defiantly kept climbing a chair when he'd been told "no." Grandpa told him that Mama wouldn't let Grandpa take care of Henry if Grandpa let Henry get hurt by climbing up the chair. This went on for a couple minutes. Henry returned to the chair and started climbing...again. Grandpa said, "Henry, you are not allowed to climb the chair." Henry responded "Mama let me." Incidentally, I was not on the property at this time, so Henry was stretching the truth a little bit.

Henry was adamant about looking at "Pics!" this morning. Alicia had an appointment, so I had Henry to myself. I honestly got a little bit tired of looking at "pics." I took Henry to visit Grandma and Grandpa. My dad's college debate partner was visiting, so Henry got to meet him. We only stayed about 45 minutes. Henry looked at "pics" on Grandma's computer. Then we headed back home. Alicia and Karina were there when we arrived, but Henry was sound asleep so I put him to bed for his nap.

Grandma visited in the afternoon. Henry went on a walk with Jeff and the dogs. I got back around 7:30PM. Henry had already eaten. He played in the pantry. His new skill: opening the cat food container, grabbing a fist fill of cat food and dropping it on the floor for Roger. He actually started doing this yesterday (forgot to mention it on yesterday's post). He keeps trying to sneak pieces in his mouth when we are not looking. He did eat a piece yesterday. He tried again today by turning his back to me (because I couldn't see him then). I stopped him in time. He was most indignant about it. Roger was on the other side of the gate. Henry was feeding him single piece by single piece. Poor Roger. Probably took more calories to track down each single piece than what he received from eating it. At one point, Henry dropped a bunch of pieces on our side of the gate and proceeded to play with them by putting them in the cup and then turning the cup over with Roger looking longingly at them.

We then went into the living room. Our plan was for me to read "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" while Henry and Jeff played. But Henry got mad that I wasn't watching him, so Harry Potter got abandoned. Henry was very tired. Jeff put him to bed. He's there now. I'm packing for a trip to two day trip to Chicago. It will be the first time that I've left my Doodle Bug overnight since he was in the NICU. I come back Saturday night.

"I Want Mommy!"

My son has a one-track mind: "Pics! Pics!" Oy vey!

I ended up showing him pictures of famous paintings. We often use Google images to find new "pics" to look at. Incidentally, I do not recommend looking up "squirrels" as a subject. A lot of pictures of taxidermied squirrel photos will appear (some of the squirrels are taxidermied into lewd positions). People have rather obscene, pointless, sick hobbies.

In the late afternoon, we went for a walk. Henry drank his "bot" as we cruised the neighborhood. He smiled through his bottle at Yvonne and Swani. Roger was the object of everyone's affection on the walk. He was chased by Luke, Annie, and Chocolate. Having lost 12 lbs since January has really paid off for him. He's now 60.6 lbs and was able to get away from his admirers.

I made dinner. Asparagus soup, which Henry didn't really eat but he did manage to make a mess with his spoon and bowl and get soup all over his hands and hair. Henry was really grumpy and dinner. Yelled "Up! Up!" at me after 3 minutes of having sat down to dinner. He was very upset that I did not acquiesce and get him out of his seat. We made a quick dinner of it. At one point, I had to go into the kitchen (about 10 feet from the table) to get a wash cloth. Henry was mad that I left and shouted out "I Want Mommy!" Felt bad that he was upset, but I was highly impressed at his ability to construct a sentence! And I confess that I loved being the object of the sentence.

We gave our very tired boy a bath. He was exhausted. He stayed up late last night. Only took an hour nap today. Recipe for exhaustion. Fell asleep in Dada's arms within 5 minutes. Dada went to the store. Henry called out about 20 minutes after Dada left. I transferred him to the king-sized bed. He snuggled with me, which was nice.

EIP Goals

Grandpa came over on Thursday afternoon and took him over to his house. Henry was busy as usual. When he came home, he was a bit wired. Very hard to get him to sleep.

On Friday afternoon, we had our 6 month meeting with Elsa, Henry’s DDD development coordinator. We had to review our early intervention program (EIP) goals that we wanted him to accomplish. The process is incredibly silly, but that’s government bureaucracy. For example, our two goals were continued progression of language skills and cognitive skills. Then we had to create statements as to why language and cognitive skills are important. I’m not joking. Hmmm…why is it important for one to be able to communication and think?…hmmm. And the answer couldn’t be something like, “Communication is a crucial part of human development” or “We want Henry to be able to perform age appropriate activities” or “Henry needs to be monitored because he was born extremely prematurely which makes him at very much at-risk child. Duh.” Nope. That’s not “specific enough.” If we said we wanted Henry to be able to become “independent,” we had to say why. For example, “I want Henry to become independent so that I can cook dinner without holding him.” That would be considered a “legitimate” explanation. I believe that I created one explanation about wanting him to distinguish poisonous creatures from non-poisonous creates so that he wouldn’t get bitten by a rattle snake, black widow, or scorpion. Again, I’m not joking. That was considered an enlightened rationale for wanting to continue therapies. Thank you state government for creating bureaucratic hoops to early intervention rather than providing services for the obvious! It is OK for me and Jeff because we can play that game. I was rather proud of my goal of Henry avoiding rattle snakes. But the process does lead one to wonder about how children of parents less argumentatively inclined fare under this system.

On Friday night, Jeff and I went to a Catholic Services dinner honoring several people in our community. My cousin Tom invited us and my parents. It was a really nice dinner. Our table included Jim and Molly (Jim is my mom’s first cousin), Tom and Jennifer (Tom’s my second cousin with whom I went to school; he was a year ahead of me), and my parents. Tom and Jennifer have four children ages 5, 3, 3, and 2 years old. We are looking forward in getting them together with Henry. The dinner ended with a band called Hot August Nights, who played Neil Diamond songs. The singer did an amazing job impersonating Neil Diamond. Looked and sounded just like him. Meanwhile, Henry spent the evening at my parents’ house with Aunt Erin and her childhood friend Jill. When we returned to the house, Erin said, “Wow. He is an active little boy.” Indeed, he is. They read a lot of books. Henry spent a lot of time going back and forth between the living room and family room, moving toys to different places. Erin was impressed that when Henry falls, he doesn’t fall apart. He stands up and keeps moving.

On Saturday, we had breakfast at Joel’s Bistro. There was an “indoor Tour de Tucson” which was taking place outside in the courtyard. A band was playing and there were several cyclists on exercise bikes in front of the band. During breakfast, Henry was really using his fork well. He pierced and then got to him mouth four pancake pieces completely on his own. Toward the end of breakfast, a steel drum band from Tucson High School took the stage. They were really good. Afterward, we walked around the grassy areas on campus. Stopped into the Arizona State Museum. Henry wasn’t enthralled with their displays and didn’t get the whole “quiet voices” thing so we made it a quick trip. He visited his grandparents in the afternoon.

On Sunday, we went to Tohono Chul park for breakfast. Henry decided that scones were edible (previously had rejected them) and had fun putting black beans in his mouth with his fingers. This resulted in a HUGE, crusty mess, especially when he decided to put his beany hands on his head. Jeff cringed. I thought it was pretty funny. And, he did manage to each quite a bit of the black beans that way. His pronunciation is improving dramatically. He called the beans “black beans” distinctly. We then headed to Harelson Elementary to play on the equipment. Henry enjoyed walking up and down some hills. He is getting really good at it too. We then headed to the grandparents for an afternoon visit. Jeff and I met up with them and Henry for dinner at Swenson’s. Henry likes saying “Hi” to everyone. He waved and blew kisses at a senior citizen patron a couple booths away. She blew kisses back. He really wanted the attention of our waitress. He leaned backward in his high chair to watch her take an order from the booth across from us.

On Monday, Jeff reported that Henry and Karina were running around chasing each other in the living room in the afternoon. At one point when Henry was chasing Karina, she stopped and he barreled into her. Grandma picked up Henry and Jeff in the late afternoon. She dropped Jeff off at the UA to meet up with me for dinner and basketball. The NIT tournament is running the first two rounds on our campus. We went with Kyle, one of my colleagues who knows a lot about sports, so it was a lot of fun. We had pizza and drinks beforehand. Got to the gym to watch the last half of UAB vs. Santa Clara. Waited around for the UA vs. FAU game to start at 9PM. It was the latest that Jeff and I have stayed out since having Henry. We were happy that UA won! We got to my parents around 11:40PM. We were a little surprised to find everyone up. Apparently, Henry refused to go to sleep. We got home around 12:30AM. I carried Henry to our rocking chair. When I tried to put him in his crib, he woke up. So we snuggled on the bed. Henry usually snuggles with Jeff in the night. It was nice to have some mommy-Henry snuggle time for an extended period. I unfortunately had to get up at 4AM to pump (my favorite activity).

Henry was a log this morning. Not exactly a surprise. Alicia has an appointment tomorrow morning, so I get Henry all to myself. I’m looking forward to that!

I forgot to mention an exchange that Henry had with my parents sometime last week. They asked Henry what Grandpa likes to watch. Answer: “Ball!” Then they asked him what Grandpa likes to drink. Answer: “Pepi!” (that means Pepsi).

Pappy

Jeff and I attended the foster care-adoption orientation on Tuesday night. A lot of people were there. As near as we can tell, the state contracts its services through several organizations. We have to select an organization with whom to work. They will conduct an initial screening, and we'll be attending 30-38 hours of training over the course of a couple months. Then, we have to have a home study conducted ($800). And then, assuming everything goes well, we would be eligible for foster care-adoption.

Adopting a baby through this system is not real likely. There are children available for adoption who are 6 years and older. The younger ones are often adopted through private routes OR they are foster children whose biological parents drop the ball and then become available for adoption. When this happens, their foster parents are given the first opportunity to adopt them. So, the recommended approach if one wants a younger child is to do "concurrent" foster care, which means that you take care of the little one and if the biological family doesn't fill out the paper work or is deemed unacceptable by the courts, then you can adopt. To be honest, the whole process at the orientation seemed rather convoluted. It only became clear when talking with one of the ladies from an organization called "A Place To Call Home." She was the one who really explained the details to us. I told her that we were looking toward adoption in part because we have Henry and we want to make sure that he has a stable environment, so I'm not sure having a revolving door of children in and out of the house would work. She said that if we were looking toward a younger child, then the concurrent care was the way to go BUT that often meant taking care of children who have been abused, then having your heart ripped out as they are returned to their biological families, and then eventually getting a child who was meant to be yours (as the paper work falls through on the biological parents' end).

The goal of the foster system is to reunite children with their biological families. They bend over backward for biological families, even when abuse, neglect, and drugs have been factors in the child's removal. As the lady from "A Place to Call Home" explained, biological parents have 12-15 months to complete paper work. If druggie mom is strung out for 8 months after having baby, then decides to fill out the paper work, the clocks starts at the 8 months meaning that foster baby could be taken away from you when baby is 2 years old, having spent those first 2 years of her life attaching with you. Does this sound like a good system of advocacy for the child's sake?

Jeff and I haven't ruled out getting an older child, but we have to think through some of the consequences of that decision (e.g., attachment issues, emotional needs, etc.). Our plan is to pursue the training, so that we'll have many options available to us. We are also amenable to taking care of medically fragile children. We were fortunate that Henry never needed a g-tube and didn't have to come home with an NG tube for feeding, but we do feel that we could handle those situations and/or situations with oxygen. Both of us work so it would depend in part on how medically fragile the child was. We'll be signing up with "A Place to Call Home." Jeff figured it was a good sign when the lady and I hugged at the end of our conversation.

Let's see. Henry took Grandma and Grandpa's house apart. He was difficult to get to sleep when we got home. Then, yesterday morning (Wednesday), he was even harder to wake up. We tried gently calling of his name and rubbing his back. He'd pop his head up, look at us, then flop back down on the bed. It took about 20 minutes to get the sleepy head up. OK. He doesn't look like me, but he and I are simpatico on the sleep front. Stay up late, wake up late.

Yesterday, I came down with the flu. Felt awful. Wasn't able to go to school. Didn't spend time with Mr. H. Grammy whisked him away from the house at 3PM. Jeff picked him up at 7:30PM. Henry played in the living room. The other day, we figured out that he was calling Grandpa "PaPa" (which kind of sounds like PawPaw). So we have Dada for Jeff. And Papa for my dad. On Tuesday, he was running around saying what we thought was "Happy" but now we think that we was saying "Pappy." We suspect that Grandpa is PaPa or Pappy.

I forgot to mention a new behavior of Henry's. He's been mimicking Jeff's golf swing. Jeff often practices his golf swing in the mirror when he passes it (with no club in hand). Jeff also practices his swing in the backyard outside the large glass windows of the living room (with and without his club). He keeps a driver under the porch for his practice swings. Anyway, over the weekend, Henry started putting his hands together and swinging his arms in a full golf swing motion. It is so very cute. Jeff is of course thrilled at this development. Henry is a golfer in the making. Given that Henry's peripheral vision probably isn't going to be the greatest (b/c of the laser procedure) and some people say that ROP babies shouldn't play contact sports, I'm pleased that golf appears to make him so happy.

This morning, we had another heck of a time getting Henry out of bed. Jeff swooped him up in his arms, put him on the change table, and started changing his diaper when he was still asleep. But Henry woke up cheerfully and said "Hi!"

Henry is in a great mood today. Patty, who helps clean our house, arrived, and Henry ran back and forth between her and Jeff giving out hugs. What a sweet guy.

Mt. Henry

On Sunday, we took Henry to Jason's Deli for lunch. He didn't eat much because he was too interested in the new surroundings. We sat in a booth near a window where Henry stared at a group of friends talking outside. He liked that he got to sit in the booth in a booster chair rather than sitting in a high chair. Afterward, we went to Twice As Nice (didn't see anything of interest) and Borders (saw lots of things of interest). Henry picked out two books for himself. He had fun walking quickly up and down the isles. He is going to be running soon. Then, he went over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a couple of hours. They dropped him off around 7:30PM. We played in the living room for awhile. He wasn't sleepy. I took one of the couch cushions and placed it at a slant on the museum bench so that Henry could slide down it. I also casually tossed some cushions on the floor around it. That ended up being fortuitous because Henry decided to climb up the slide and fell backward onto the cushions.

On Monday, I returned home in the evening to find ALL of the couch cushions on the floor. The couch is fairly large, so a lot of cushions were involved. Jeff had made a cushion mountain for Henry to climb. Over the past week or so, Henry's had a great time diving head first off of furniture and catching himself with his arms. Good thing he's strong. Henry and Dada were having a good time. The high chair ended up near the front door. Guess Princess was in it, and Henry decided to take her for a little ride. Henry spent a lot of time with his Story Book Reader. If you put in a book, it reads the words on the page. At the end, there's always a song. Henry likes the songs. He bounces up and down to them. It was a struggle getting Henry to bed. But Jeff worked his magic.

Today is Tuesday. The big thing on the docket tonight is that Jeff and I will be attending an information session on foster care and adoption in our county. Even before getting pregnant with Henry, we had planned to adopt at least one of our children. In fact, Jeff and I independently were leafing through adoption pages when we were in Philly. I'd like to have another baby via pregnancy too, but I'm still pumping so that's not in the cards yet. Plus, I will have to consult a high risk OB to determine what the risks are. It would be selfish to get pregnant if the risks to the baby are too high.

A World without the Baggage of Stereotypes

On Friday afternoon, Henry had his PT appointment with Shirley. When I arrived, Shirley, Jeff, and Henry were in the living room, throwing objects into a laundry basket. Henry was getting quite good at his throw.

In the late afternoon, I took Henry and the dogs to visit Nick and Janice's horses, but then our dumb dogs decided to chase down a coyote who was hanging out in the road. I ended up yelling after them. They ignored me, so I had to run back to the house with Henry, drop him off with Jeff, hop in the car, and go looking for Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dee. Luckily, a neighbor pointed me in the right direction when I came to the T in the road. The Tweedles were just hanging out 30 yards away. I got them in the car. Another neighbor came by with his dogs. Apparently, there was a whole pack of coyotes in the area. Most likely, the coyote that the Tweedles were following was bait to lure the dogs into an ambush. Very fortunate that didn't happen. Got the dogs back to the house, put on the leashes, and set out with them, Henry, and Jeff to check out the newly graded road. The road is definitely smoother, but they made it wider than we would have liked. We liked our narrow, quaint road.

In the evening, Henry had noodles and banana-plum baby food for dinner. Henry ate the noodles with gusto. When I gave him a second helping, however, he decided to clean his tray by flinging them around the room, much to the Tweedles' delight. Jeff gave him some chicken. He could not quite manage stabbing it with his fork, so he'd pop the chicken in his mouth with his hand, and then put the fork in his mouth to symbolize what he was supposed to do. It was very cute. I decided to give him his container of banana-plum, so that he could practice with his spoon. He would dip the spoon in it so that it was lightly covered, and then suck the contents off the spoon. He's done little spoon work on his own, so I was rather impressed with his ability to use it. At one point, he decided to add some noodles to the banana-plum. Didn't try to stop him. Figured that if it tasted awful to him, he'd spit it out. Jeff put him into his crib around 8PM and then headed off to Trader Joe's for goat's milk. Henry woke up shortly after Jeff left. He settled down quickly when I put him in his king-sized bed.

This morning (Saturday), Henry got up around 7:30AM or so. He had a long snooze. Wonder if he is going through another growth spurt. Jeff got out the backpack that Henry rides in and put it in the living room. As Henry, Jeff, and I sat in the living room while Henry was drinking his bot, Henry walked over to the backpack and said "backpack." I was again impressed. I don't recall either of us trying to teach him that word.

We went to Cafe Paraiso this morning. We believe that Henry said the word "pancake," which was what he was eating. He said it unprompted by us. He also ate potato, egg, and avocado. Plus, one of the fellows who works in the kitchen came out and gave him a peanut butter cookie, which he enjoyed. We then walked around the grassy hills around the Arizona Museum and Communication Building. At one point, he decided to try to walk up the steps that are on the outside of the Communication Building. He did a great job walking up and down hills. He certainly burned off a lot of calories. Around 11:30AM, we arrived at the grandparents' house. Henry was sleeping. We put him in their king-sized bed, hoping that he'd take a longer nap than he usually does if he is in a crib. My mom reported that he slept about two hours.

Jeff and I decided to go to the movies. As we left our car in the mall parking lot, three male idiots in a car made a bunch of racket and appeared to be trying to open the back door of our Honda. We heard them. Jeff ran back to the car. They made up a lame excuse and drove away. We got their license plate number and reported them to mall security. That made us late for the movie, so we ended up seeing "Pride & Glory." Did some work around the house and then picked up Henry at 5:30PM. He'd at a big lunch at 2PM. He helped my parents in the yard. Apparently, he likes to sweep up things with the broom.

We decided to take Henry to the mall for dinner. I checked out the RSV statistics for the state on the web before we went (see http://www.azdhs.gov/phs/oids/epi/flu/az_flu_surv.htm). Only one case was reported last week. Two cases the week before that. And two cases the week before that. In short, the season hasn't gotten too far underway. Henry had a great time playing in the children's area at the mall. He attracted the attention of a little girl (about 6 years old, I suspect). She took a liking to him and tried to catch him when he slid down the various slides.

At one point, Henry walked right up to a rather large, burly fellow with a ponytail in his late thirties who was covered in tattoos and said "Hi" and waved to him. I'll be honest. Upon looking at this fellow, my first thought was that I wouldn't want to run into him in a dark alley. It occurred to me that Henry sees people but he doesn't evaluate them with stereotypical assumptions. It is a lovely thing to see the world through the eyes of a child. He is just as likely to say "Hi" to the homeless fellow at the courtyard where we eat breakfast on the weeks as he is to say "Hi" to a pretty little girl. He smiles just as readily at senior citizens as he does to the young waiters and waitresses at restaurants. He certainly gives people a looking over, but he doesn't yet have a bunch of stereotypical baggage to use to create an understanding of who the person is before having met them.

The play area at the mall was quite crowded. Henry had a lot of fun. Afterward, we went to the Food Court. Henry is an American boy who had cheese pizza, fries, and gyro for dinner. He rejected mandarin orange. He ate a lot of food. And, he actually gave us the time we needed to eat our food as well.

Unfortunately, tonight's excursion was our last trip to the mall this season. It is with heavy hearts that we have to go back under quarantine but we know that RSV is likely to rise in the near future, and Henry can't be caught in its path. It is tempting to pretend that we need not worry about Henry's health anymore than any other parent of a 15 month old. But the reality is that Henry, although he looks fabulous on the outside, has some issues on the inside that we need to mind.

Here are some renditions of the differences between premature infant and full term baby lungs that remind us why we have to be particularly careful until he's about 2 years old:

Retrieved 11/8/08 from, http://www.preemiecare.org/LungsTrees03-4.pdf











Retrieved 11/8/08 from, http://www.synagis.com/hcp/sub/premature.aspx














Unfortunately, lungs don't grow as well outside the womb as they do inside it. It takes years to make up outside of the of the womb for the months lost in the womb.

We have decided that we won't be quite as strict as last year about having people over to the house. Assuming people are not sick, we may have them over. Everyone will have to do the proper hand washing beforehand, of course.

Ocks!

Yesterday went fine with the nanny. Jeff went into the kitchen at the end of breakfast. The trays were off the high chairs, and Henry and Karina were leaning over in their chairs and trying to touch finger tips.

In the afternoon, Henry and I went outside to check out the road work (which started on Wednesday). It looks good. Lots of rocks have been pulled to the side of the road. It was the first time that I let Henry wander around the property on his own...closely monitored of course. Jeff came out and joined us. Henry saw me pull some rocks from the middle of the road and toss them to the side. He decided to help and had great fun pulling up dirty rocks and throwing them around. As he did so, he yelled "Ocks! Ocks!" We walked up the road. Henry continued to play with rocks. We ran into our neighbor Tim. He's pleased with the improved road as well. Henry handed him some rocks. We also ran into the two fellows doing the road work, but Henry got a little shy and grabbed onto Jeff's leg rather than shaking hands. As we walked back to our place, Henry found a stick and used it to make lines in the dirt. We tried to teach him to say "stick" but unfortunately the "st" was replaced with a "d." What can I say, we're working on it.

Henry was mad that he had to go back inside to get ready. He wanted to play in the dirt. We eventually made our way to the grandparents' house. Henry fell asleep in the car. Apparently, he didn't nap there long. He had a very active evening with Grandma and Grandpa. Jeff and I went to the first UA basketball game of the season against Incarnate Word with Jamie and Steve. Grandma reported, when we returned, that Henry is a bit unruly. When he is told "no," he smiles and does whatever he wants to do. The biggest no-no is that he keeps trying to climb onto the glass coffee table.

Grandma had asked last weekend about discipline. We aren't going to spank him. I'm hardly a hippy, liberal professor type who doesn't believe in the use of force under any circumstance (in personal life as well as public policy, although I do wear Birkenstocks). But it does seem to me that force should only be used with clear, reasonable, and realistic expectations about the results. The bottomline is that spanking Henry would be foolhardly for two reasons. First, the boy has a high pain threshold as I have mentioned before. It would take an immense amount of force to get a reaction (can we say CPS). Second, modeling. If we spanked Henry, we'd be teaching him that hitting is OK. That's a problem where the safety of other children is concerned. Henry is a very strong child. He picked up some rocks yesterday that were heavy, really heavy. Jeff and I had to make sure he didn't drop them on his foot. We continued to be surprised at just how strong he is. He moves large, heavy chairs across the kitchen without a problem. Anyway, a strong child needs to learn how to use that strength properly. Teaching him that hitting is an appropriate way to bring about a desired response is NOT the lesson that we want to teach him...for his safety and the safety of others. In sum, no spanking. Period.

We plan to start doing "time outs." Our time out location is going to be the play pen, because we never actually use it for him to play in. The living room is his play yard. We don't want to use the crib because we don't want the crib to be associated with punishment. Although the boy can be head strong, he really don't act up much. The three things that he continuously does, and is told "no" for, are: (1) standing up in the bath tub, (2) trying to sneak into my office to look at "pics" on the computer, and (3) climbing on the glass coffee table at the grandparents. Having witnessed the behavior of other children his age, we feel incredibly fortunate that Henry doesn't have daily tantrums and has a loving, sweet disposition. That doesn't mean he is a push over. He is independent and occasionally likes to push the boundardies to see what we'll do. So "time outs" it is.

Yoda, Eye Doctor, More Teeth

For Halloween we dressed Henry in a Yoda costume and went to dinner with Kate's parents at El Charro. We tried to go to our usual hangout, Swenson's, but it was closed. El Charro turned out to be great. All the employees were dressed up and many of the customers as well. Henry received a great many compliments and was fawned over by a couple of waitresses. I was shocked he kept his Yoda hat on all night. He hates hats and usually pulls them off in a few seconds. We had a great time and felt lucky that Swenson's wasn't open that night.

We didn't take him Trick or Treating. He is a bit young for that still.

On Saturday I had some work to do in the morning so we didn't go to our usual breakfast at the U of A. We did go to Costco with Kate's parents. Henry had a good time and picked out some new books. From there he went to his Grandparents for the duration of the day. Grandma makes salmon for him regularly, which Kate and I don't do because she's vegetarian and I don't like fish. It's good that Grandma gives him his brain food.

On Sunday we did manage to go out to breakfast at Tohono Chul. Henry wasn't as enthusiastic about the black beans as he was the week before. He still ate a decent amount.

From there we went to Kate's old elementary school to play. They have a great shaded playground as well as soccer fields. The down side was that there were no other kids. We took along Henry's putter and basketball and he had some fun with those. He was most excited when some older boys showed up but they weren't interested in playing with a 1 year old. I had to restrain Henry from getting involved in their teatherball game.

After that he went to his grandparents again. Kate and I had some serious house cleaning to do before our election day party.

On Monday we had a road meeting at our house so Henry was able to show off for all the neighbors. He is always strapped to my back when he sees them on our walks so some were rather surprised to see how mobile he is. He behaved himself for most of the meeting. All meetings need a good high pitched scream now and then just to make sure everyone is paying attention.

Tuesday Henry had an annual checkup with his eye doctor. She said his near sightedness has become a little worse, which is to be expected from a growing child. She didn't think a prescription was necessary at this point but we are to expect he will be wearing glasses rather early on. I was a bit saddened by this. He's doing so well that it has been easy for me to pretend that his prematurity won't have any effect. He is so cute and sweet and smart that I hate to think of him wearing coke bottle glasses and being called names at school. He's overcome enough for one lifetime. The news really wasn't bad all things considered. I just want him to be as happy as he is now for the rest of his life.

We had a few people over for election day. One of them had been a nanny for some time and loves little kids so she had fun. Jaime brought Henry a new hat, a green knit hat with Yoda ears on it. It is so adorable I can't even believe it. It will be perfect for the winter if we can keep it on him.

We decided to pull out some of the other hats Jaime had knit for him when he was in the nicu. The contrast was really shocking. As Jaime said, the nicu hats looked like muffin cups while the Yoda hat is pretty big.

Today Kate and I have been having some serious talks about the future of our nanny. We both found her doing things today that we had explicitly told her not to do. We've never had a great feeling about her and we are starting to think maybe we should heed the tingling of our "spidey senses" as Kate calls them. As Kate pointed out, she had the same bad feeling about her OB who, if left to his own devices, probably would have let Kate and Henry both die as he dismissed every concern and his staff provided bad advice and lied about blood pressure readings because they didn't know how to do them.

On a lighter note, Henry has 2 new teeth coming in. These are a little further back and are molars. I think he will like having something to grind with back there.