Super Strong

Henry has been keeping us busy. I spent Thursday morning with him. At some point during the day, Henry started blowing raspberries again. We hadn't seen that trick in awhile. It is kind of interesting because our friend Jenny and Jon have a little girl named Izzy who was a full-term baby and is just short of a month older than Henry's adjusted age. On Izzy's blog about a month ago, Jenny had mentioned that Izzy had started razzing again (after that skill had disappeared for awhile). It's interesting because we'll read about Izzy doing a skill. Then sure enough about a month later, Henry does it too.

My mom came over in the late morning. When mom arrived, I was working with Henry on banging blocks together. Henry would bang the blocks and then my mom and I would clap and say "Yay!!!" Henry figured out that we'd do this every time he would make noise with the blocks. After awhile, my mom says, "Now Henry, your mom and I can't cheer every time you do it." I said, "Speak for yourself!" I continued to clap until Henry got bored and was ready for something else to do.

Grammy stayed until about 1:30PM, when my sister Carolyn arrived to spend some quality time with her nephew. Carolyn was in town for her spring break. I unfortunately had to go to school for some extra office hours as my research methods/statistics undergraduates had an assignment due today. They put off doing the homework as usual and were in panic mode. I missed a lot, but I'll try to recap what Jeff said happened. Apparently, my son rough housed with Aunt Carolyn. He pulled her hair (he loves doing that) and did a lot of kicking. She has long blond hair. I should have warned her to pull it back. I later talked to Carolyn; she mentioned that Henry was rather strong. He is.

Carolyn got to witness an exciting physical therapy appointment with Dorsett. Dorsett banged two plastic blocks together, and Henry imitated her. He did a little bit of toy banging at the appointment before, but this session just confirmed that Henry can imitate. She said block banging imitation is an 8 month old skill. It is a skill that not only demonstrates fine motor capacity, but also cognitive engagement. One has to observe and process things cognitively in order to then imitate a behavior. The second big thing that Henry did was go from being on his tummy to being in a sitting position. He did it once by himself. Then, she put him on his tummy a second time. He tried to do it again, but needed a little bit of help the second time. Big stuff! I can't believe that I missed it for extra office hours for students who put things off at the last minute. Argh.

In the late afternoon/early evening, I was still at school. Henry hadn't slept much. Jeff was sure that he was ready to crash. Took longer than he thought. He ended up feeding Henry who fell asleep in his high chair. Jeff sent me an email of the picture. A nice reminder of home while I was working. Isn't Henry super cute? He did wake up eventually. We ended up giving him a bath. He loves the water.

This morning (Friday), Henry had his synagis appointment. The nurse weighed Henry at 17 lbs 4 ozs. I said that it was great that he's gaining weight, but that also means he'll need two synagis shots, not one. The nurse said, "Well, we'll see." Henry played around on the tissue paper in the office. He tried to unplug some dangling cords nearby, while we waited. The nurse came back a few minutes later and said, "I guess that mom is right." Synagis is already a pretty big shot. We definitely were not excited that he needed two shots of it (one in each thigh). After she was done, I held him and he quieted down. We had hoped that this would be his last round of synagis shots. But it appears that RSV season is most likely going to extend into April, which means that Henry has to get the shots next month as well.

Jeff took today off of work. Veronica had called the night before, ready to start back. But most adults are contagious with flu for 5-7 days. So, we told her that we'd start back up on Monday. I headed to school for additional office hours. I came back mid-afternoon. Tara arrived around 3PM. Henry was a bit fussy with her. Don't know what was up with that. When Henry was sitting on the floor, he started to lean backward. He used his right arm to the side of his body to catch himself. I actually caught him before he needed to catch himself, but I was so pleased that his reflex is really kicking. in. When Tara was leaving, we waved to her and said "Bye Bye!" I moved Henry's arm to wave. As she was ready to head out the door, she said goodbye and Henry flapped his arm at her by himself.

Henry had a new food today: Carrots. He liked them. He didn't make the usual "What the heck is this?" face when I put the spoon to his mouth. He usually gives us an odd expression when trying something new. We think that the camera capturing his first bite was rather distracting for him. He does so love the camera!


We had a pleasant walk in the evening. There's not a whole lot else to report. Henry crashed relatively early this evening. His milk intake has been low today. I won't be surprised if he gets up in the middle of the name because he's hungry.

7 months & 1 year

Henry is doing very well this week. He finally cracked the 17 lbs mark yesterday and today weighed 17lbs 2 ozs. His intake is up. Today he had 980mls, his largest total in a long time. He is still enjoying his solid food as well. He is sleeping more these days as well. Hopefully it will all lead to growth.

We haven't noticed any obvious tooth pain for the last few days. The physical therapist thought she could see where they will be coming in on the top and the bottom. We have tried but haven't been able to get a good look in his mouth.

Yesterday was his 7 month adjusted birthday. I looked at a growth chart and I think he looks like he is doing well. For height and weight he is between the 10th and 25th percentile. For head circumference it looks like he is about the 25th percentile. However, I personally think he has a kind of funny shaped head. It's a bit flat in the back still and seems kind of long. It doesn't look out of proportion to his body at all. He still has a good sized soft spot so he's still set to grow, which he has been doing consistently. I'm not worried. He is obviously very intelligent and shows no signs of neurological problems. It is impressive that he even shows up on these charts for term babies given his rough start.

The day before yesterday was Kate and my first wedding anniversary. We decided to go all out and actually wear our wedding rings that day. We got out of the habit in the NICU because we had to wash our hands all the time.

We ended up giving his nanny the week off because she is sick. She came down with the flu on Sunday. She feels better now but we don't want to take a risk by bringing her back too soon. Grandma and Grandpa are doing their best to fill the void and I'm taking some time off.

He saw Dorsett, the physical therapist, on Monday. He did well once again. His new trick was to imitate Kate who was banging two blocks together. That was the first time we have seen him do such obvious imitation. Dorsett always seems to bring something new out in him. She will be stopping by tomorrow.

There are probably other things I should note but I'm rather tired so I'm signing off. I believe we have a number of cute pictures that we will add later.

Neurologist, Kate's B-day

It's been a few days since we posted anything and not too much is new. Henry is in a better mood these days, and today he had a pretty decent intake of food. Still no teeth popping through.

On Friday Henry visited a pediatric neurologist for an evaluation. He behaved very well and the doctor thought he looked very good. She checked range of motion, muscle tone, reflexes, and asked questions like if he had seizures, etc.

We ran into the "he will catch up" mentality again. We've mentioned before about how some doctors think that Henry should catch up to full term children born at the same time he was, even though they were conceived months before he was and had the benefit of hanging out in the womb for a few more months.

Shockingly the neurologist commented on how he was in only the 2nd percentile for head circumference, which she was concerned by. She, of course, was not adjusting for prematurity and stated that the head circumference for premature children is still typically comparable to term babies. Pah-lease, give me a break. So in the womb Henry was supposed to realize that he was going to be almost 4 months early and so divert all his efforts to growing a head the size of other babies who were 4 months older than him. It's just so stupid a concept that I have to question the intelligence of any doctor who mentions it, which is quite a few. Other than that she seemed like a decent doctor. We will see her again in 6 months.

When we got home from the neurologist appointment, the physical therapist showed up. She is great at what she does but scheduling is not her thing. She had told us she would come on Saturday but there she was on Friday. She hasn't showed up at the time she has said she would once and twice now has been off by an entire day. But she is great with Henry and has shown us how he can do things we didn't know he could.

As usual she was very impressed with his performance. She mentioned how she was bragging about him to a speech therapist she works with, which made us feel good to hear.

Friday night we took Grandpa dinner. He had to take their dog Indy in for emergency eye surgery for a bad lens and was waiting for a call from the vet for an update on his condition.

On Saturday Henry slept a lot. We were going to take him over to visit his Grandma and Grandpa in the evening, but my work called and I had to spend an hour or two on a problem.

Today, Sunday, was Kate's thirty muffle muffle birthday. We took Henry to Grandma and Grandpa's where he was able to visit with Kate's sister Carolyn, down from Pullman for spring break from vet school. Kate and I then went out to breakfast and went shopping for toys for Henry at a fun used toy/clothes shop nearby.

We had dinner with family and close friends, which was nice. It's always nice to show off Henry to anyone we can. He handled the crowd very well. He even helped Kate unwrap her presents and was amused by uncle Jim.

Not So Happy Henry

Henry has been rather fussy the last couple days. The most unusual behavior is that he is waking up from sleep screaming. He has done that the last 2 nights and a couple times waking from naps during the day. He normally sleeps through the night and if he wakes he doesn't scream the way he has recently. He has also been generally much more irritable than normal. His mood can change from a happy squeal to a painful scream in mid breath. His food intake is also dropping again.

We believe it is teething but are not sure. Dr. Bianchi mentioned on Monday that he thought Henry's upper gums were a bit swollen and his behavior is pretty typical for teething from what we have read. However, we thought he was teething a few weeks ago due to large amounts of drool and then it just went away. I guess we will wait and see, the motto of our pediatrician.

Yesterday Henry had a visit from Dorsett, the physical therapist. She was very impressed by Henry again. She had come the day before but Henry was sleeping and she won't wake up a baby to do therapy so she left. We will see her again tomorrow or Saturday.

Today Cuyler and Tara came to visit. Cuyler was very happy with his movement. He did a good job sitting and was making a rocking movement which will help transition to crawling. Our homework is to keep fostering the rocking motion. She said that she thinks he will be a good crawler.

Yesterday Grandma visited in the afternoon. She is off to Pullman today to visit Carolyn and will not be back until Saturday night so she had to get in one last Henry fix before the trip. Grandpa visited last night and watched a lack luster Suns team lose to the Nuggets. He came by this afternoon and was here for the visit from Cuyler and Tara.

There was a little drama this afternoon when Henry's nanny discovered that she had scraped the bottom of her car on our extremely shabby excuse for a road and all the oil had leaked out. Kate has been canvasing the neighbors to see if we have support to get the road fixed, which it seems we do. However, just a little too late for Veronica's poor car.

Tomorrow we have an initial visit with a pediatric neurologist. We originally scheduled the appointment for the earliest slot they had which was May. However, there was a cancellation and we got moved up. We don't see any issues with Henry but are operating under the premise that it is better to establish a relationship with the doctor and get a base line on Henry so that if something does come up we are more likely to get in to see them. Apparently there are very few pediatric neurologists in Tucson and so they are in high demand.

Adoring His Daddy

Henry had a busy Sunday at the grandparents' house. He enjoyed his solid foods. He also enjoyed grabbing Grammy's glasses off her face and tossing them aside. I heard my mom saying "No!" to my baby. Henry is getting rather forceful with his grip. And, he has an excellent arm. We took several cute pictures of Henry. Jeff took one of me holding Ramses (the Pom Pom/Ewok) near Henry and my dad. Ramses and Henry look like they are about the same size.







On Monday, Henry did a lot of sitting up for longer and longer periods of time. He's doing a great job putting his hands on the ground and turning onto his knees, where he bounces back and forth. We had an appointment with his pediatrician yesterday. He weighed 16 lbs 14 ozs. Nothing interesting to report. When Dr. Bianchi came into the room, he said "I didn't get a chance to see Henry in February." Yes, indeed. A whole month with no pediatrician visit.

In the evening, we went for a walk. Henry was so cute. He looked up adoringly at his daddy. Jeff says that he wasn't looking at him; he was just looking up to figure out how to get his hood off his head. I do think that Henry was adoring Jeff. But it is also true that Henry has recently gone through an anti-hat phase. I think that he likes knowing that he has control to move objects (e.g., hats). Jeff took a self-portrait of himself and Henry. With his arms stretched out, it almost looks like Henry took the picture! Grandpa visited in the evening.

Today, Henry was a sack. He slept a lot. Bitsy likes to sleep near Henry in the Boppy pillow. When Henry was awake, he was making a lot of Ba sounds again. Grammy took care of Henry this afternoon. He was pretty fussy this evening. We tried avocados again, but he wasn't in the mood for them, giving us some "yuck" facial expressions. The avocado was very fresh, but it wasn't nearly as flavorful as the ones given earlier.

Remember When...

Henry had a fussy afternoon. He had a couple of screaming fits. We couldn't figure out what was bothering him. He'd eaten, had his bottle, wasn't wet, etc. We suspect it could be the teething. He went over to his grandparents' late yesterday afternoon and stayed there for a couple hours so that I could get some work done. Jeff and I managed to watch half of "Flags of Our Fathers" before Jeff left to pick up Henry. We'll finish watching it some time this week. My parents had suggested that we go out to the movies or something, but we decided to stay home, because Saturdays are rather crowded at the theaters and we are still staying away from crowds through RSV season. Before Jeff and Henry left my parents, Jeff noticed that Henry had a rash all over his body. We don't know what caused it. But for now, we are holding back on the oatmeal, since that was something he ate that was new (although he had it several hours earlier).

We took Henry to Columbus Park this morning. It is a park that's a short drive from our house (3-4 miles). It's the park that has a large dog run area, which is nice. There are also a couple small lakes (well, large ponds) that are used for racing remote control boats. Henry didn't seem particularly enthralled, but that's OK. Marley and Roger had a good time.

We are currently at my parents' house. I'm about to continue with some data analysis. Jeff brought his computer as well. The Wildcats are facing UCLA in less than an hour. I'm just hoping that the Bruins don't devastate the team.

On Thursday, my dad saw Holly, one of Henry's fabulous primary nurses from the NICU. She gave him a CD of some Henry pictures from when he was in the NICU. I suspect that these photos are from August. Here is a trip down memory lane...

Super Cute...As Usual

Henry had a good Friday. He slept a lot for Veronica. In the morning, he weighed 16 lbs 11 ozs.

Tara came in the afternoon. Henry was cute as usual. Not a lot to report, except that Tara arranged for a pediatric neurologist to see Henry, so that we can get a baseline on him. Although there are no apparent concerns right now, his dramatic entry into the world does put him as a high risk for various developmental problems. These problems sometimes don't appear until the child hits school age. The neurologist's office called Thursday. We have an appointment for May 9th.








Henry hasn't been drinking much milk in the morning, but he has been making up for it in the afternoons and evenings. On Thursday afternoon, he consumed around 7 2/3 ozs of milk in one sitting. That's the most he's ever done. And then yesterday afternoon, he had quite a bit as well. Grammy came over and took care of him for a few hours. We went for a walk around dusk. It wasn't as relaxing as usual, because our dogs have been acting like dodos. We tried to use the Dog Whisper techniques, but they weren't responding, so we leashed them. Argh.

Found another scorpion in the house. It was running around my office. Jeff took care of it for me. It was quite a Rasputin. I'm not happy that we are already seeing scorpions IN THE HOUSE! It doesn't bode well for the summer. We already have Dave the Exterminator come once a month. Sigh.

We gave Henry a much needed bath in the evening, which he loved. The last couple of baths, he has tried to put his face in the water. We always monitor him like a hawk in the bathroom. Too many opportunities for him get hurt. I bought him some cups with holes in them to play for the bath tub. He had fun trying to catch the stream of water that was dripping out of one of the cups. When we got him out of the tub and dried him off, he decided to shower me with his youthful essence. For a child who had kidney problems for the first 2.5 months out of the womb, he sure doesn't seem to have any problems now. He slept like a log last night.

Henry is 10 months old today (3/1). Since February doesn't have a 30th day in it, we'll consider today his 10 month birthday. He is such a big boy. Henry had a lot of fun this morning playing with his daddy. He also had fun posing for the camera.






He got very hungry after his workout. We decided to give him a new food: oatmeal. He could tell it was different than rice cereal. But he enjoyed it. He grabbed the spoon from Jeff's hands and tried to feed himself. Grammy the last two days had let Henry make some attempts at self-feeding. She said that there were a lot of misses on Thursdays, but he made some improvements on Friday. He didn't actually use the spoon himself this morning, but he'd grab it and then try to guide it to his mouth. Unfortunately, the act of grabbing the spoon resulted in more food on his hands and front than food left on the spoon by the time it got to his mouth. He seemed to have fun with it.

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.