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.

A Dare Devil

Over the past couple days, Jeff has repeatedly said that Henry has reached a "dangerous phase." Earlier in the week, Henry started sliding off the couch head first, catching himself with his hands and lowering himself to the ground. I think that it was yesterday (Wednesday) when I was at work that Jeff caught Henry trying to dive head first off the bed, which is quite a bit higher than the couch. He also spent a good deal of time yesterday trying to walk down the stairs (two of them) into the living room rather than sitting down on each step and crawling down them. Henry also likes to climb high up on chairs and bounce around. In the past week or so, he has figured out to get up onto the living room chair by himself (it is a little higher than the couch, so it is a tougher climb).

On Tuesday, Grandma picked him up in the afternoon. He went to the vets with Indy, Grandma, and Grandpa. Unfortunately, Indy's retina in one of his eyes has detached, so he is now permanently blind in that eye. Indy seems, however, to be in good spirits though. Henry enjoyed the vets office. He had salmon and asparagus for dinner. When we went to pick him up in the evening, he was trying to climb onto the glass coffee table. He was mad that he was being prevented from doing so. He climbed under the coffee table and hit his head against the top. I said, "Henry, don't bonk your head on the table." So he did hit his head again and said, "bonk, bonk." Not exactly what I had in mind. He didn't hit it hard, but I'd rather he avoid ramming the super noggin into things. When I say "bonk," he sometimes takes his hand and pats his head with it.

On Wednesday, Grammy picked up Henry and took him to visit Lucinda. She dropped him back at home. He fell asleep in the car. Jeff managed to get him into his crib without waking him. Henry took a good nap. I had to stay late at work getting some grading done. Jeff made Henry soup and Henry had some of the middle eastern green beans for dinner (a lot of them). When I returned home, I heard a lot of splashing in the tub. When Henry finally went to sleep, Jeff put him in his crib. He stayed there until about 5AM and then came to bed with us. This morning (Thursday), Jeff remarked that it is good that Henry "can" sleep in his crib, but he did kind of miss the little guy as Henry is very snuggleable. They are making up for it tonight. I fell asleep on the couch around 10PM. Just woke up to find the boys in bed.

Today (Thursday), we didn't have any visits from grandparents today. Henry spent a lot of time in the backpack in the afternoon. Jeff is organizing a grading of our road. Evonne found out that the neighbors on the other side of the wash are having their end regraded. She got Jeff the contact information. Jeff called the fellow doing the work. He stopped by this afternoon to look at the road and give an estimate. Jeff called our neighbors on Wednesday night about it. Fellow stopped by today. Henry went out with Jeff as the guy took a look at the road. Jeff reported that before the fellow showed up, Henry was getting a bit antsy as Jeff and Janice (neighbor directly across from us) talked and tried to climb out of the backpack.

Got a hug from Henry when I came home, although I think that he really just wanted an excuse to get on the dog side of the gate. We decided to go to the mall for dinner, but Henry ended up falling asleep in the car so we drove to Trader Joe's instead. Jeff picked up supplies while I waited in the car with a sleeping Henry. Henry woke up by the time that we got home. Jeff had gotten dinner from Chopped (next door to TJ's). Henry ate lots of pasta salad, some corn and poblano chowder, and turkey from Jeff's sandwich. We played in the living room after dinner, while Jeff read from "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." Henry's fine motor skills are improving. He picks up puzzle pieces by the tiny red knobs on them. Then, I fell asleep in the living room while Jeff and Henry went to bed.

On a side note, I don't know if we mentioned this on previous posts, but a couple weeks ago, Henry started writing on the magnadoodles that we have. Looks good. And he knows how to use the eraser on it as well.

Rough Day

Henry was a sleepy head this morning. Jeff got me up around 7:30AM. I stayed in bed with Henry for about 15 minutes. I rubbed his back, but he just buried his head in the mattress and managed to get the pillow on top of his head. Bitsy came by and licked the soles of his feet. He then curled them up under his body with his derriere in the air. I got him out of bed by 7:50AM. We were about to take him out to see Alicia and Karina, but they suddenly had to return home b/c Alicia's husband had left his car keys in her car. I played with Henry until they returned around 8:45AM. A later start to my day than I had anticipated.

The big scare of the morning was that Marley bit Henry. Alicia said that Henry was climbing on top of Marley and Marley got upset. Sigh. I've mentioned several times that the kids should not rough house with Marley. She's testy. She's fine when we are monitoring the interactions. We (Jeff and I) are always right by Henry's side if he touches Marley. But I guess Alicia wasn't following those protocols. Marley got his face. He was stunned and didn't like Alicia's effort to clean out his wounds. We are very lucky as it could have been much worse. Marley was banished to the garage. I hopped in the car and went to Safeway to get Neosporin. As I came back, I found Marley wandering around the dirt road near a wash about two parcels over from our place. She'd escaped from the yard...again.

Henry was asleep when I got home. I put the Neosporin on him while he was in his crib. He got up for lunch a little later than usual (nap was also a little later than usual). He seemed as cheerful as usual.

Grammy picked him up at 2PM and took him to the store. She took him back to her place and he spent some time with Grandpa.

I went to school to teach. Had a nice class. It was a discussion class today instead of lecture. I ordered a huge middle eastern meal from Sinbad's. Got home around 7PM. Henry had returned home before 6PM. He'd gone on a walk with Jeff. I was greeted with a vivacious "Hi!" I walked past the dogs without saying hello and made it to the baby gate to the Henry. Got through the gate and left the dogs on the other side (not that Roger should be punished when it is Marley that's the problem dog). Apparently, Henry had learned much from the day's events. He stuck his hand through the gate, and Marley licked it.

We have full confidence that Marley would never just attack Henry. She gets testy (with other dogs for example) when they are invading her space. But today's events clearly show that she is going to have to be physically separated from the rest of the family when Henry is around. Sigh.

We had a huge family dinner at the kitchen table. Henry ate lentil soup, babagounush, hommous, pita bread, loubeia (green beans), dolmas, and Aladin chicken. He loved trying to say that word "babagounush." We're calling it "baba" now, but in a deep voice. He was having a lot of fun changing his voice to match mine. He was a great eater tonight.

We played in the living room. I read from "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." We gave Henry a bath. He is doing better sitting down in the tub. At least tonight anyway. Jeff gave Henry a bottle and put him to bed in the crib. I suspect he'll cry out in about an hour for a transfer to his "real" bed.

Beans! Beans! Beans!

The first word out of Henry's mouth this morning was "pics." He likes computers way too much.

We went to Tohono Chul Park for breakfast this morning. Henry and Jeff played in the back garden while I ordered for us. Jeff got Henry settled in his high chair right before the food arrived. As the waitress put my plate in front of me, Henry called out "Beans! Beans!" He had black beans last weekend when I ordered the same dish. He liked them. And we had taught him the word "beans" but neither of us had used the word since our last visit. We were a bit surprised that Henry remember the word. Henry ended up eating over three-fourths of the black beans on my plate. He rejected the scone, and it seemed like I couldn't get the black beans in his mouth fast enough. There was some cheese from the huevos enchiladas that had gotten on one bite of beans that he rejected. He spotted it and refused the bite but called out "beans" again. Apparently, he is a black bean purist. After finishing a good deal of black beans, he had some fresh strawberry too.

After breakfast, we visited a different park in Oro Valley called the Cañada del Oro Riverfront Park. It was nice. Henry went down a slide. Climbed on the equipment. The kids at the park were nice and didn't trample him when he got in their way. A 6 year old girl approached Jeff and told him that Henry was cute. She talked with Jeff for awhile. She has a new baby sister who spent a long time in the hospital with a kidney issue. She played in the wood chips and dirt with Henry. Henry liked her. Henry ran out onto a soccer field and played in the grass. He shouted out "Ball!" at the father and son playing catch. They threw a ball his way so that he could play with it. We left around noon to held to the Grandparents' house. Henry was rubbing his eyes. It was well past his usual naptime.

Henry fell asleep in the car. When we arrived at my parents' house, Jeff put Henry on their bed instead of the crib. He sleeps better on beds. He took a two hour nap. Jeff and I went home to do some work. I had a conference call, and Jeff did some work outside.

When we arrived at my parents' for dinner, Henry was asleep in Grammy's arms. She reported that Henry didn't tear the house apart as much as usual. A rather sedate day for Hurricane Henry. He ate fairly well at lunch. He got up as we ate dinner, but he didn't eat much himself. We read some books. Jeff took him to the office to look at "pics." When he started rubbing his eyes, it was clear that it was time to head home.

The NICU Graduate Picnic

On Thursday afternoon, we took Henry to the Pima County Health Department for his flu shot. His pediatrician's office doesn't offer the preservative free flu shot. Some people claim that all infant shots are preservative free, but they are wrong, operating under some serious misunderstandings of the reality of vaccines. So off to the health department we went. Last year, we were pleased with the operation. Child vaccination clinics are offered on Thursday afternoons/evenings. Last year, we went right at 1PM when the clinic started. It was an efficient operation. This year, we arrived after 3PM. It was jam packed solid with people. Oy vey! Some teenagers with what I'd call alternative hair styles were very taken with Henry and made faces at him to make him laugh. This was good because we were holding him, which was making him mad. He wanted to run around, which is the last thing we wanted him to do. Run around the health department...I think not. It took awhile, but once we got into the exam room, the nurse (or whatever the title was of the person sticking the shot) had Henry sit on Jeff's lap sideways so that he was facing me. She stuck him in his left upper arm. He turned to watch her as she drove the needle into his arm and he didn't flinch. Not a peep. OK. Most people who probably say, "Wow, what a brave little boy! How wonderful!" But it isn't really that great a thing. Henry has a very high pain threshold, which isn't uncommon in preemies, and that can actually be problematic because pain actually teaches us important lessons of what to avoid. There is some empirical evidence that suggests that the preemie brain gets rewired because it has faced stimulation (e.g., needles in the arms, legs, heels) too early. I too have a much higher pain threshold than many, but I don't think that it is comes close to Henry's. Sigh.

After the flu shot, I headed to school because I was evaluating one of our graduate student's teaching performance. Then, I sped off to the Northwest side of town for a dinner with six scholars (three U.S., three German) and their organizers from the Transatlantic Academy who are in-town studying immigration issues. My mom was one of the main speakers at the dinner. Long story short, I didn't get home until after midnight. Came home to find the house in absolute disarray. You know those television ads where the mom gets sick, so the dad takes over, and once the mom has recovered by taking NiQuil, she walks into the kitchen to find the place an absolute disaster. Well, my house could have been in that ad. I found Jeff and Henry sound asleep in bed.

Jeff took Henry to the mall after the flu shot. They went home. Had dinner. Or at least left food around the kitchen. Then, the boys decided to take apart the living room and make a fort/slide out of the couch cushions.

Here's what I missed:


On Friday, I had a colloquium to attend at school (my mom was the speaker), so I didn't get home until after Shirley had left. Jeff said that they played with the basket ball. Henry sat on Shirley's lap, and she showed him how to throw the ball to Jeff. Jeff was again amazed. Shirley has the touch. Henry doesn't let anyone else manipulate his hands without protest.

We played with Henry. Then, Grammy, who hadn't seen Henry in a couple days, picked Henry up and took him to her place. This was in the late afternoon. After Jeff and I got some stuff done and walked the dogs, we went to Grammy and Grandpa's house. Grandpa was a bit surprised because during a diaper change, Henry said a new word: "penis." All five of us went to dinner at Swenson's. Henry tried some of Grammy's strawberry milkshake. Grammy has been dying to give Henry dessert for the longest time. We said OK, but not very much, because it has cow's milk in it. We figured that it would be a test. No more milk products, however, for a couple days. We have to make sure that his output is alright. He liked the milk shake. Had some hamburger. He was a very tired boy, however, at the end of the meal.

The big event today (Saturday) was the NICU Graduate Picnic at Reid Park. We saw several of Henry's nurses: Lisa (nurse practitioner), Penny (specializes in development), Jenny (helped out immensely one night when "the traveling nurse" was assigned to Henry and couldn't handle her job assignment; we greatly appreciated Jenny's help that night b/c she stepped in when care was needed), Carol (also does administrative work), Karin (does administrative work and rotations), and Holly (evening primary nurse).


After assessing Lisa for about 5 seconds, Henry let her hold him. That's pretty unusual for him. It has happened with a couple people before, but he usually likes to assess people for about 20-30 minutes. He liked her. Lisa was one of the first people that I remember in the NICU. I thought she was a doctor at first. She is a nurse practitioner (NPs) , which basically means that she does some extra procedures that the RNs don't do (e.g., PIC lines). The NPs basically have the knowledge the doctors and the knowledge and interpersonal skills of the RNs. As a group, they are outstanding communicators. Jeff and I have nothing but utmost admiration for the NPs. During Henry's first week in the NICU, Lisa had the task of having to tell me that Jeff and I needed to indicate at times whether or not the medical staff were intervening too much in assisting in Henry's survival. It takes a special person to have the skill to broach tactfully that part of the NICU experience when one has had a micropreemie b/c survival isn't the only issue; quality of life is an issue too. Anyway, it was very nice to see her.

Jenny was so sweet to us. She told us that she thought about us often. I've already mentioned above how much we appreciated Jenny when she stepped in during a not-so-great nurse experience one of the evenings.

I've talked about Holly dozens of times before, so I'm sure that readers of this blog already know that Holly was one of Henry's primary nurses on the night shift. At the picnic, she set up some games for the kids. One involved beach balls being used as bowling pins. The pins were made of NICU bottles filled with water. Henry kept grabbing the NICU bottles, shaking them, and running around with them. Holly was exceedingly generous as always. She gave Henry several fun toys to take home (e.g., beach ball, goggles, slip-n-slide, etc.).

Henry played on the playground equipment. A boy named Atticus who is almost 2 was so kind as to not trample over Henry when Henry got in his way on the equipment. He patted Henry on the back, which was sweet. I let Henry loose in the jumping castle. He's too short to go on the one at Funtastics, where they require a 36" height. Jeff was a bit hesitant to let Henry loose in the jumping castle and told me that if Henry got stuck (e.g., wedged in the back), I was going to fetch him. The parents of a girl, who I guess was about 4-5 years old, kept telling her to stay away from Henry. I think that they thought she was going to fall on him. I wasn't particularly worried about him. He's been knocked over several times by Roger's derriere and Roger probably weighs 40 lbs more than the little girl did. She was disappointed b/c I think that she found Henry cute. She actually seemed to be a well-coordinator and controlled little lady. Henry had a very good time on the jumping castle. Hoping that Dada will eventually concede to us getting a smaller one for the living room.

After the picnic, we went to the zoo. Henry relaxed in the stroller while drinking a cold bot. The weather was nice. It wasn't too crowded. And the animals were out and about. The jaguar were actually moving. We were impressed last time because they were in the front of their cage, lounging in the sunlight. They usually hide in the back. Today, one was pacing near the side of the cage. I think that he saw a bird or something in the bamboo. The other one walked up a tree trunk and hung out at the top in a most unmajestic fashion. It was hilarious. As we watched the jaguar, a little girl of about 6 was smiling at Henry. She tickled to him a couple times, and he grinned back at her.









It was feeding time for the giraffes by the time we got to their pen. Henry and I bought two biscuits. We were the first to fed one of the female giraffes. She took the biscuit right out of my hand before I was expecting it. I gave the second one to Henry who placed it right on her tongue all by himself. We visited an area where they have peacocks wandering around. Henry was enthralled with a white peacock and started chasing it, so Jeff had to hold him back. Jeff didn't think that the white peacock really wanted a hug.

The zoo had a lot of Halloween decorations up. Henry was fascinated with Yoda. Funny because we were thinking of dressing him up in a Yoda costume for Halloween.






At the end of our visit, Henry played in the pumpkin patch. But alas, the pumpkins were too heavy to carry.










He then went over to Grandma and Grandpa's house to have chicken Florentine for dinner. The grandparents brought him back to our place around 8:15PM. We played and played. Henry had fun wrestling with me on the bed while Dada pet Marley. Henry was giggling loudly when I tickled him. We also played a game of "Where's Mommy?" I'd "hide" under his blanket. Jeff would say "Where's Mommy?" Then, Henry would pull the blanket off me, laugh, and dive into me. Then, we'd do it again and again and again. We later went to the living room, where I read from "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" while Henry played on his couch cushion slide. He and Jeff headed to bed around 10:15PM or so.

Henry Gets Kissed By and Kisses A Girl

On Wednesday, I gave Henry a kiss before I left for work. He was in his high chair having lunch. Alicia was holding her daughter Karina. I said, "Henry, I'm going to give you a kiss" and leaned over to give him one. Karina, nearly fell out of Alicia's arms, bending over to give Henry a kiss as I was doing so. After I gave him a kiss, Karina bent over a second time and managed to give him a kiss on the lips. Then, she bent over a third time but it was Henry who was the kiss giver this time. It was very cute.

Jeff took care of Henry while I was at work. They went for a bike ride around the neighborhood and played in the living room. Jeff attempted to make a tuna melt, which was apparently a "disaster." Henry did try a bite of the tuna melt, but that was about it.

When I got home, I made some Top Ramen. I've been craving it for a couple months now. Henry decided to try some. He loved it. Ate about five bites of it. It does have some soy in it (in the powder). He hasn't had soy in a really long time. So we've wanted to try trace of it in his foods to figure out if he has an actual allergy or an intolerance or maybe the whole issue has disappeared now that he's older. That said, it will be awhile before I give him tofu. I don't see any reason to rock the boat on the issue.

We played basketball while Dada read from "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." And we played golf. Henry has gotten into the habit of dropping balls on Bitsy. No sure why. When the soccer ball comes down, Bitsy usually moves a couple feet out of the way, but she never vacates the premises. She tolerates the golf balls from Henry's toddler golf set; they don't weigh much.

We gave Henry a bath. He wasn't as bad as he usually is about standing in the tub, which drives us nuts. He's been playing with the little figures from his Backyardigans pirate ship. We've been holding Olympic high diving trials for Pete the Pirate and Sam the Snail. Henry likes that.