Dorsett's Last Visit

I dropped off Henry at his grandparents' house this morning. He looked happy.

My mom could tell that I was stressed. She suggested that maybe I should stop the pumping, considering that he is taking the goat's milk with no problem. Basically, I would like to do that, but there is no question that (a) breast milk goes down easier on the stomach than anything else, (b) the vitamins and minerals in breast milk get absorbed at much higher rates than anything else, (c) breast milk transfers the mother's antibodies to the child, and (d) breast milk contributes to myelination, whereas substitutes aren't able to contribute nearly as much (hence breast milk babies have 8-9 point higher IQs on average compared to formula babies).

My mom thinks that the last point isn't much of an issue for Henry. She said that his IQ was probably around 140. My tongue-in-cheek response was that I was shooting for 155, which I pointed out probably would have been my mother's IQ had she been breast fed as a child, which she was not; her actual IQ is 147, when it was tested awhile ago. That evoked an eye roll from her.

In all seriousness, I know that Henry will probably be just fine. But I figure that we only get one shot at making sure that he makes it out of his most crucial time of development as strong as he can possibly be. I don't want to look back on these years second guessing myself, having made a choice that placed my convenience over Henry's well being. Pumping breast milk is far from fun, relaxing, or convenient. I'm not going to be setting any publication records this year in part because it takes so much time out of my schedule. But what can I say? Career comes second when you have a child. I'm stilling doing OK at work. This year has not been stellar, but I have satisfied (and in some areas exceeded) what is required to do my job.

We were supposed to have a Selah appointment today, but we canceled it because I was at school taking care of business and it just wasn't going to work out on time.

That ended up being OK because Dorsett called to see if she could see Henry today for her last visit. Unfortunately, the insurance company didn't extend her visits with Henry because he is getting PT from Shirley now through DDD (which the insurance company likes, because DDD picks up the bill). It's probably for the best in terms of our schedule, because we already have a minimum of two therapy appointments a week. However, Henry really likes his PT visits, and there is no denying that Dorsett has challenged him in ways that have facilitated his PT development. She has a great way of handling him, and he enjoys working with her.

Dorsett bought Henry a 1 year old birthday gift a couple weeks ago, and she gave us a copy of her son's old Raffi cassette tape to play for Henry (because she knows that he likes music a lot). We've been playing it for him.

Dorsett was willing to have the PT appointment at my parents' house, which was good for us. I believe Dorsett lives in the center of town, so my parents' house is probably a couple minutes closer than our house is (if not closer, at least their roads are less rustic than ours meaning that they are paved). When Dorsett told Jeff that it would be her last visit, Jeff decided to hop on over to my parents' house so that he could take a picture of her and Henry and thank her for help. Jeff said that she was sitting with Henry on the couch reading books when he arrived. Henry had already been all over the house displaying his gross motor skills.

When Jeff got back home with Henry, he was sleepy, so Henry and I snuggled and took a nap together. During our nap, Jeff went shopping for a new car seat. Henry has outgrown his current car seat. He's getting too long for it, so Jeff got a new one, which is exciting. Henry and I got up for our walk around dusk and ran into Hal and Swani (and Annie and Luke the dogs). Beautiful night. The breeze was whipping around Henry's fuzz. He is very slowly getting hair. It will be a long while before a hair cut is necessary.

We had dinner. Henry tried some a level 3 soup of sweet potato bisque and cinnamon. I have Henry a taste of my asparagus spear (let him suck a couple tiny pieces off the tip). It was a little spicy, so I don't know how much he actually liked it. He was very sleepy still. So we gave him a bath, and then right to bed.

I took a short nap with him, while Jeff cleaned up the kitchen. Jeff got me up at midnight, so here I am, preparing for tomorrow's class and taking a break by writing this entry.

That about wraps it up. I am disappointed that we won't see Dorsett regularly, but she asked Jeff if it would be alright to call just to see how he's doing. We of course want to keep in touch with her and truly appreciate how she was brought out new things in Henry.

Henry's Fine; I'm in a Bad Mood

On Sunday, Henry got up around 6AM or so. He'd had a good nights sleep. He played with his toys, and we read "Rainbow Rob" for the millionth time.

I guess that I woke up on the wrong side of the bed because I was critically analyzing Rainbow Rob. It ends with a passage that goes something like, "Rainbow Rob's dream was done. He made some friends and had some fun. But most of all, he learned to see that being yourself is the way to be." Just about all children's stories end with good morals platitudes, like "Be yourself," "It doesn't matter how you look, it just matters who you are," and "Good things happen to good people." I just wondered at what point in a person's development these platitudes go by the wayside. How is it that our society has an entire generation who worships at the shallow altar of Paris Hilton and friends? Just seems like well over a majority of people don't care about learning or reading; they just care about how they look, how much money they have, and how popular they are.

Are we setting children up for disappointment and failure but not being a bit more realistic from the get-go about how life works? Jeff asked what story lines changes did I have in mind. I guess if one was going to write a realistic children's series, one could write stories with catchy titles such as "Bad Things Happen to Good People," "Life's Not Fair," to which Jeff added "Why Me?: The Nancy Kerrigan Story." Last week, I showed "The Truth About Lies," which is a very well-done Bill Moyer's video on lies and politics. Between that and reading about some preemie experiences from parents who have older preemies who are dealing with sensory integration disorders and being bullied at school for being different (with absolutely no support or protection from teachers who just let kids torture special needs kids), I've been in a pretty bad mood and rather disappointed in humanity.

On Sunday, Jeff and I took Henry to Tohono Chul Park for breakfast. We had such a good time the weekend before, we figured that it would be nice to go there again. We ate in the front courtyard this time, and Henry tried bites of scone and black beans. The black beans were a little bit to hard for him, but he really enjoyed the pieces of scone. We took him into the garden after we had finished eating. Henry liked watching the gardener water the plants with a hose.

Henry spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa. Jeff and I went to the movies in the morning to see "Sex in the City." There is a funny scene where Carrie (having been dumped at the altar) is reading a fairy tale with a "happily ever after" ending to a friend's daughter and she ends up telling the girl, "You know things don't end up that way, right?" For those of you who haven't seen the movie, I'm not spoiling anything that hasn't been in the previews. And everyone should pretty much expect Carrie and Mr. Big to have problems (since that was the driving force of the seven seasons of the show). I thought that scene was pretty funny in light of my comments earlier in the morning.

Henry had a good day with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma gave him a bath because he'd made a huge mess with a teething biscuit.

Henry woke up with a big smile on his face this morning. He's usually pretty cheerful when he first wakes up, until he (a) realizes he is hungry, OR (b) gets his diaper changed.

I dropped him off at my parents' house before heading to school. I was holding him and asked him to give me a hug before I gave him to Grammy. And he gave me a wonderfully big squeeze. He is such a love.

My day was dreadful. My students always come up 30 seconds before lecture to ask personal questions. Then, they get huffy when I tell them that they'll have to wait until after lecture (as the other 104 people in the class are waiting for it to begin). My TA gave a guest lecture at the beginning of class. His presentation was on the primary/caucus process. Several students didn't understand the difference between candidates and delegates. Several obviously had no clue about the Florida/Michigan controversy. I do wonder how it is possible to live under rocks for an entire primary/caucus season. Even if you only read/heard one Clinton/Obama story a week, surely the topic would have arisen a good part of the time. After class, I had a long line of students waiting for me. Then, I had to grade. Long story short, I wasn't able to pump for over 11 hours, which is terribly hard on my body and awful for the milk supply. Got to my parents' house to get the car seat to Jeff (I had accidentally left it in my car, which meant that Jeff was stuck at my parents' until I arrived), and the power cord was missing for the pump. Tried to use the battery generator, but it wouldn't work. Had to rush home to "Suckie" (our pet name for the hospital grade pump that I'm still renting from UMC). Yes, I'm still pumping my son's food. No, I don't like doing it, but it is what is best for him. When will I stop pumping? Not soon enough. Given Henry's situation, the longer that I pump, the better for him. So it is what I do. After writing this blog entry, I get to finish prepping class for tomorrow. Oh, and my laptop is on its last leg. I just placed on order with our SBS tech folks tonight, so hopefully they can place an order for a new one soon.

According to Jeff, Henry said "Mama" when he arrived at my parents. My mom told him that Henry has been saying it too. Henry refused, however, to say it when I was around. Despite him not saying it to me, I was pleased that he is making his M sounds more often. I heard him making several N sounds this evening.

We went on a walk tonight around dusk, and we ran into several of our neighbors. Henry was smiley. He played with Hal's hat. And he had fun watching our gaggle full of dogs (7 between us all) interact.

It took a long time to feed Henry tonight. He dumped most of his cup of water onto his tray. Then, he used his hands to splash it all over the floor. Luckily, Jeff has put down rubber mats (colorful, interlocking squares) in the table area. Worked well.

OK. I'd better finish my lecture for tomorrow. As Scarlet O'Hara said, "Tomorrow is another day."

First words?

We think that Henry is beginning to say some words. Now if you asked my mom, she'll probably tell you that his first word was "poop" and his second word was "book." We, however, haven't heard those words in context, so we haven't counted them as words.

Yesterday, it sounded like Henry said "Dada" twice before turning to Jeff and crawling up him. I'm pretty sure that Henry knows that Dada is Jeff, but yesterday was the first time that I thought he was vocalizing in context. If you say "Henry, where's Dada?", he'll look at Jeff for sure.

It's a toss up because I thought early this week or last week, Henry said "Boo" in reference to Bitsy, whom we often call Bitsy Boo. He said it repeatedly when Bitsy was around, but it is also true that B syllables are his favorites. If you say "Henry, where's Bitsy?", he definitely looks right at the right cat. He also knows Roger's name too.

I think it was last week when my mom said that Henry had used Mama when I walked into the kitchen. I heard it too, but I haven't heard it since. The M sounds are few and far between.

We had a nice morning. Henry woke up around 6AM or so. We decided to have breakfast near the UofA. We went to Cafe Paraiso, which is pretty empty on weekends, except for the occasional cyclist that stops by after his/her workout. We got there around 8AM and ate outside on the patio. We gave Henry some tiny bites off our plates. He had some pieces of banana from Jeff, and I gave him some potato bites and avocado. He enjoyed eating off of the grown up plates. The one downside of the morning breakfast was that he had his first major diaper leak. I'm actually surprised that we haven't had one before. I seem to recall having to deal with several diaper incidences when Carolyn and Erin were babies. Jeff was the recipient of the youthful essence leak. It could have been worse. After breakfast, we visited a nice grassy area near the turtle pond. I'm not quite sure why the UofA has a turtle pond, seeing as it doesn't exactly fit the climate and it is the only "pond" on campus that I know of. But in any event, I love turtles, so it is a favorite spot of mine. It was the first time that Henry sat on grass. He wasn't a huge fan of it, but he seemed to get used to it the longer we stayed there. He had fun climbing all over Jeff and stealing Jeff's glasses (one of Henry's hobbies).

We came back to the house around 10:30AM. Henry had fallen asleep in his carrier. We put the carrier on the bed and both fell asleep next to him.

In the afternoon, I was going to grade papers, but Jeff had 1 hour of work to do that ended up taking all afternoon after he got several requests to do just one more little thing. I'm rather annoyed at his work at the moment.

We did manage to have a family lunch around 2:30PM. Henry had some level 3 baby food, but he also tried several things off our plates. I gave him tiny, tiny pieces of bagel, a few grains of quinoa (high protein rice), banana, and vegetable masala burger. He enjoyed trying new things.

Around 5:30PM, Henry had a bottle and crashed in my lap. In fact, it's 11:15PM and he is still a sleep. He had a second round of bottle around 7:30PM, but he didn't feel like getting up after it. He took about 1/3 of the bottle, then crashed back on the bed, tossed and turned, got up for the second 1/3, and did the same thing. I do hope that he manages to sleep through the night until about 5:30AM tomorrow.

Before signing off, I just wanted to show off some more Henry pictures.

Here is a contrast of Henry then (11/14/07) and now (5/21/08) in the white and blue knit hat that Jamie made him. He was wearing a knit hat the other day, because the weather had suddenly turned cold. I suspect that it will be the last time that he wears the white and blue knit hat. As you can see from the picture, it is now a snug fit. It is a hat that has gotten a lot of use through the winter and spring.















Other pictures from 5/21 include...

Henry on Daddy's legs










Henry exercising in front of the TV










Henry going upstairs






Henry looking out










Henry going downstairs






And Henry playing with his birthday present from Jamie and Steve

Busy Week

It has been a long time since we've blogged. It has been a crazy week. I'm teaching a condensed summer school class so that I can have a reduced load in the fall in the thick of the election. My boss (and mentor) at the Annenberg Public Policy Center was willing to pay to get me a reduced load. The UofA, however, wasn't willing to give me that load (although they have for other professors in the past) unless the APPC paid "indirects" (extra money for supposed costs that really don't exist). I negotiated an agreement whereby the APPC pays me and then I, as an individual, pay for a one course teaching reduction in the spring, and I teach a summer course to get me the reduced load in the fall. So I am in the middle of a condensed summer school course that has 104 students enrolled in it. It involves teaching 3 hours per day, 5 days a week for 3 week. The students are pretty good. They are holding up well. There is no question that the setup is pretty brutal on the students and the instructor (unless you teach a powder puff course, which I do not). I never plan on doing this again.

The week has been a bit of a blur. Henry discovered the dogs' and cats' water bowl.



And, he opened some more presents that came in. That was fun.

On Friday, we had a nice visit with Shirley (PT) who continues to be impressed by Henry. Henry dismounted from his Hippo mobile in her presence. Cuyler (OT specializing in feeding) visited an hour or so later. We had made an appointment with her about a month ago when Henry was having texture problems. Those problems have pretty much resolved. She gave us some additional ideas for introducing foods and thought that we could push his diet a bit more and offer him non-dairy/non-soy table foods here and there (when the texture is appropriate).

On Saturday, Jeff, Henry, and I went to the Desert Museum, which was nice. It was a beautiful day. The lizards were out in full force, which made Jeff's day. Since we have moved here, he has been fascinated by lizards. We got to see the mountain lions who were pacing around. And, Henry did a lot of people watching. A few people stopped to say hello to him. We were pleased that we got to show him off.
















We left the Desert Museum around 12:30PM to make it back to the house for a 1PM appointment. Around 1PM, we got a call from "Doreen" who said that the person that we were going to interview had to leave for Mexico to return to her sick husband and could she take the appointment instead. She said that she was in her 40s, had raised three kids, and was looking for employment. I figured what the heck and told her to stop by. She seemed like a nice person and Henry seemed to like her, but as Jeff said after she left, it would be hard to find a person less stable to take care of our child. Highlights: (1) She has three kids, but the middle child, 12, lives with her husband who is able to provide "a more stable environment" for him than she could, (2) The youngest, 4, was given up for adoption 2 years ago to her pastor, and (3) After informing her that we will be doing background checks before letting someone take care of our son, she let us know that she has to take some classes, which she hasn't yet completed, because she broke three ribs of her former boyfriend (father of her youngest) when he severed her jaw. Oh my.

These are pictures of Henry in "Bad Idea Baby" mode on Sunday night. Why go to bed when there is a perfectly good dishwasher to try to climb in? And, wow, look at these dog bowls!





We had a fantastic visit with Joyce and Holly (two of Henry's primary nurses from the NICU) on Sunday morning at Tohono Chul Park. It was wonderful seeing them, certainly the highlight of our week. We hadn't seen them since leaving the NICU back in mid-August...quite a long wait for people who have meant so much to us. Henry studied them intently. After we ate, Henry had fun sitting on Joyce’s lap and gave Holly a big kiss on the cheek. Joyce gave him some textured blocks, which is great because he is currently very into textures. Holly gave him his first Tonka truck. We had a wonderful time and hopefully will see them again soon (not waiting 9 months in-between visits).

At Grammy and Grandpa's house, Henry was given his first horse. It's a bit softer and safer than my first horse that had the exposed springs on it. He had Grammy push it up and down for him. And he used his legs to kick the sides of the horse. The toy was clearly a hit! Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!

Monday was Veronica’s last day with us. She has moved to Texas. We were sad to see her go. Henry adores her. Having been quite unsuccessful in our current nanny search, we realize how lucky we were to find Veronica in January. Henry fell asleep before she left, so she didn't really get a chance to give him a proper goodbye. She left shortly after 2PM. We didn't do the prolonged goodbye thing, which was probably best. My eyes were misting up as it was, and so were hers.

Dorsett visited on Monday, and Selah visited on Tuesday. Dorsett would like to continue to work with Henry on occasion. Given his rough start, he is still an "at-risk" child. She really loves working with him, and I think that she finds him a fascinating case study. She referred to his progress thus far as "historic." I do love hearing Henry talked about in such terms. There are some people who believe in neuroplasticity, and I certainly hope that such a guiding principle is true. Basically, neuroplasticity is the idea that the brain can remap itself based on experience. There are other people who say that neuroplasticity is limited and when one has a micropreemie, it isn't a question of "Will there be brain damage?", it is a question of "How much brain damage will there be?" The latter folks, not surprisingly, think that therapy is generally a waste of time. As near as I can tell, the research on long-term effects from therapy is fairly limited. One study found no effects, but I can find detailed descriptions on how "therapy" was defined. Obviously, therapy can take many shapes and forms. And, we have attributed at least five positive major changes to his team of early intervention specialists.

Our visit with Selah was cut a little short on Tuesday, owing to our dogs running off on their own. When we put them in the backyard, they are normally fine with just sitting under the patio. But Marley, our troublemaker, has recently decided to be an explorer. And Roger follows her without a thought. They have both been in the doghouse this week (so to speak).

Since Tuesday, Henry has been going to his grandparents’ house in the morning while I teach. Dorsett visited Henry at my parents’ house on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, we had a nanny interview with Alicia and her 11-month old daughter Corrina. The interview was fine. If Alicia took the position, Corrina would be coming with her. Corrina was a pistol. Very cute. It was the first time that had met a baby (outside the NICU). She wasn’t shy. She actually scared Henry a little bit. He was nervous watching her tromp around his territory. We have been debating the merits have having one-on-one care for him vs. being around another child. We haven't decided yet.

Today, Henry had a good time at my parents' house. He did manage, however, to turn off my mom's computer in the middle of a critical analysis, which I don't think pleased my mom too much. I arrived at my parents' house around 3:50PM to pick him up. I was famished because I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. I found some ginger snaps. Henry decided to try one. I monitored him closely, because he has really strong jaws and can snap the rock solid Gerber teething biscuits effortlessly. He doesn't know how to swallow large textures though. Anyway, he loved, loved, loved the ginger snap. I only had to fish a large piece out of his mouth once. For the most part, he gummed the cookie well and ate tiny pieces that I had broken off for him (once he had moistened the whole thing down).

I'm leaving a lot out. At some point this week, Henry discovered how to zerbert our (and his own) arms. I often zerbert his tummy during diaper changes, which makes him laugh. Now, he can return the favor. He has been spending a lot of time looking through his books. Books are very important to him these days. He has been more bold on his sitting. He lets go of whatever he is holding onto and lowers himself down with his legs (not always perfectly controlled, but pretty darn good). He has been ripping up his daddy's computer magazines (I'm pretty sure that would be considered a fine motor skill).

The one frustrating change in Henry that has occurred in the past couple of weeks is that he has decided that diaper changes = torture. He squirms and cries while trying to change him. And once the changing is over, he miraculously stops crying.

That's about it from here. We gave Henry a bath tonight. On the nights when we don't give him a bath, he has a hard time settling down. We had originally planned to give him a bath every other night, but I think that we are now settled on the idea that he needs the 4 Bs at night: Book, Bath, Bottle, and Bed.

Placing Bets

Henry had a nice Sunday with his grandparents. Grammy said he was delightful, and he ate more of the veggies and pasta. The dogs seem to know that they need to move away quickly when they see Henry approaching. Grammy and Grandpa took Henry to the pool area and sat him near the edge where they reported that he kicked his feet in the water for quite awhile. At some point, my mom decided that they should go in, but Henry protested. He was having too much fun.

The nanny search is simply not going well. I can't begin to tell you how many email responses are simply not professional. And the fact that we are going the legal route and insisting on paying Social Security tightens are pool of prospects quite a bit. On Monday, we were supposed to have an interview with "Lauren," but she wanted to change the interview to Tuesday. Jeff had been contacted by someone else (Anna) who wanted to be interviewed Tuesday. Anna cancelled today because she said she got another job. And, Lauren never called or emailed back. There is another possibility for Jeff to contact, but she has a daughter (2) who comes with her to work. We don't mind Henry meeting other children (in fact it could be good for him), but we are concerned about noise, because Jeff works from home and I do a lot of work from home as well.














Veronica said that Henry was quite active today. In the afternoon, Selah came for her OT visit. Not a whole lot to report. She decided that we should go back to doing some basic things on the fine motor front. She says that a lot of kids regress in a skills area when they start flourishing in another. His gross motor skills are obviously flourishing, so she thought his fine motor might be regressing. We don't think that they are regressing really. He is using his pincher fingers more and more. We gave Selah a demonstration of his pincher skills with the Gerber puffs. She got Henry to take some of the puffs from her fingers, rather than the plate. Jeff and I do agree that his fine motors skills are not acceleratingly, and his gross motors skills are simply stunning. We think that Selah's game plan of going back to some basic fine motor skills, rather than trying new ones, is probably best. Henry spent some time with Selah banging blocks and pulling balls out of a pitcher. He's got the pull out down, but he doesn't want to put objects in things yet.

Henry did a lot of practicing going down the stairs today. He can do it two ways. Ploughing straight down the stairs or turning himself around and backing down the stairs. From a safety perspective, we like the latter. But Henry is so confident that I think he likes the head first approach best.

While my mom visited, he used his walker toy to take a few steps across the room. It was the first time that I had seen him initiate that move on his own. My mom said he had done it yesterday too. When he was with Jeff, he dismounted Xena the Zerbra all by himself, which floors me. I suspect that Xena is actually a little above his appropriate age level for toys, but he likes Xena and he looks really cute riding her.

That brings us to a discuss that Jeff and I have been talking about for a few weeks. When is Henry going to walk? About a month ago, I said that he'd be walking before he turned 1 year adjusted. Veronica thinks that he'll be walking by the 4th of July. I revised my prediction to match hers last week, because of Henry's amazing progress. Jeff decided to take my bet, selecting July 5th as the target date. When he did so, I was afraid that he had gotten the better end of the deal. But now, I think that the July 4th date might be a bit conservative. Today, Henry was doing well-controlled squats. And you can tell that he is depending on other objects for balance less and less. Of course, Jeff and I never did agree on what would constitute walking. I'm leaning toward defining it as three unassisted, purposeful steps. I'm leaving my official guess at July 4, but I would be surprised if it is late June instead. I think that soon he's going to be leaning against wall while standing. At the very least, I suspect he will be standing on his own by late June.

That's all from here. Signing out.

Henry Continues to Amaze and Dazzle

Henry has continued to amaze us with his evolving skills set. He has refined his pinching skills. His Gerber puffs have been a motivating force behind this. And when he is standing up, he sometimes goes from his hands on the window or walls right to the ground (rather than lowering himself to a sitting position first). He is obviously feeling confident in his upper body strength.

Dorsett (PT) came on Thursday while I was at work. Jeff said that she said "Great!" when she saw Henry do the bear walk. We think that we only have one or two sessions left with Dorsett. Those are the visits covered by our insurance (as opposed to Shirley who is covered through our state early invention programs, specifically through DDD).

On Friday, Shirley came over at 2PM. She played ball with Henry and worked on getting him on and off his zebra. She says that he is doing about 75% of the work on his dismount, which is pretty darn good. We asked Shirley what she thought of the bear crawl. She'd never heard of it being a problem. I told her that I could only find one case study on the Internet that mentioned the bear crawl as a problem. She asked me what it said. Well, there were five siblings in southern Turkey who had some kind of cerebellar ataxia, obviously congenital, and never learned to walk; they move through the bear crawl and can't seem to get upright. She'd seen a documentary on them on PBS. I figured if that the only case I could find was a congenital one, then it seemed like this was probably not something we should worry about, but I just wanted to confirm with her that it wasn't an issue. We're going with the two PTs' expertise, and they think that Henry's doing great.

Tara came as Shirley was leaving. It was time for Henry's 6 month review. Basically, Henry has met (and exceeded) all of the goals that we had set up when we first signed up for early intervention. There is a lot of paper work involved with early intervention, so going through all of the prior goals and coming up with new goals took a long time. The developmental coordinator isn't allowed to put words in parents' mouths, so we had to articulate each piece. For example, one goal is that we want Henry to be able to walk by the time he is 18 months old. Not only did we have to state this goal, but we had to state why it is important to us. Tara apologized for the paperwork. Another goal was that we want Henry to be able to self-feed in the next 6 months. And again, we had to state why it was important. The importance of walking and self-feeding seems rather obvious, but reasons had to be given. They included enlightening reasons as "We want Henry to be able to move from A to B by himself while on his feet, the accepted, typical mode of transport in our society" and "Self-feeding will encourage Henry's independence."

We had scheduled an interview with our first nanny candidate (Risper) for 6:30PM. She was originally scheduled for Thursday afternoon, but then she canceled and rescheduled for Friday. She never showed up on Friday. Lovely. We have a interview set up with someone named Lauren for Monday. She sent a resume, which looked good. We are hoping that she is a good fit for Henry.

On Saturday, we dropped off Henry in the morning at my parents' house and went to see Prince Caspian. As we left my parents' house, Henry was busy trying to figure out how to get through the dog door. After the movie, we got some lunch and stopped by Pearle Vision to get Jeff some new glasses. Henry broke his last pair. Jeff's new glasses are made of titanium! Hopefully, Henry won't break the new ones when they arrive next week. During his visit with his grandparents, he ate blueberries for the first time and had summer squash with pasta (level 3 food). We'd tried pasta once before, and it hadn't gone well. We suspect that Henry is getting much better with textures because he truly loves the Gerber puffs, which he eats a couple times a day now.

Last night, we went for a walk around sun down. Oddly, one of our neighbors who lives on a side street that is on the other side of the street that touches the east side of our property had set up a valet service with a tent on our side of the road; the tent was a little bit on our property. It is a part of our property that we use to put our garbage out on Fridays and one of our next door neighbors uses as well (on Thursdays as they have a different garage service). The valet tent wasn't a big deal, but common courtesy would suggest that you ask your neighbors before setting up a tent on or near their property, especially when you don't live on that side of the street. Weird. We were pleased that the bustle didn't phase Henry. We stayed off the road on which the tent was set up because there was a lot of dust from the traffic.

The weather was beautiful last night. We brought along Henry's peach puffs for the journey. So he ate, while relaxing in the baby Bjorn. I don't think that Jeff is going to be able to handle Henry in the Bjorn much longer. He's getting too big! The Bjorn has certainly served us very well. It gets used at least once a day if not twice.

Henry had a bath last night. He had fun splashing around and playing with some new toys that his Aunt Jennifer sent him.

He woke up this morning around 5:15AM screaming for his bottle. Had the bottle. Went back to sleep for a couple of hours. Played with his daddy for a while. We went for a morning stroll. Then, we had a family breakfast, which we usually do on Saturdays and Sundays. Henry was quite hungry. I think that he is enjoying his solids more and more. Jeff has taken Henry to his grandparents' house for the afternoon. That's all for now.

Long Time, No Blog

It has been a while since we have updated things here. Thankfully it's not due to any complications with Henry; we've just been busy. Henry is continuing to do well.

He is still fighting off the cold he has. We took him to the doctor yesterday because he had been sick for two weeks and it sounded like he might be getting congested in his lungs. Fortunately, his lungs are still clear. He does have some fluid buildup behind his ears. The doctor thought he might have a sinus infection and prescribed antibiotics (Amoxicilan).

Today Henry already seems better. He still has some runny nose but not nearly as bad. He is still throwing up a little bit here and there as he crawls around but not as bad as it has been. Maybe another day or two and it will be all gone.

Going back to last week, on Wednesday he received a gift from his aunt Jennifer, a caterpillar book that reads rhymes aloud. He loves it. He is very into music, and he bounces up and down as the stories are sung. He also tried tahini for the first time. He wasn't too keen on it. It is a good source of protein but was a bit strong for him. Below is a pic, yuck tahini!



On Thursday, he received a gift from our nanny, a Zebra that he can sit on and spin around on. It was her daughter's favorite for a couple weeks before she lost interest. She is moving so this toy needed a new home. Henry likes it, but it is a little big for him yet. Soon he will be riding as intended.



He also had another visit from the occupational therapist Selah last Thursday. She worked on putting blocks back into the box instead of just pulling them out. She also is trying to get him to crawl on pillows to develop his muscles. Not much luck on either front.

On Friday, he had a visit from the physical therapist Shirley and Tara. It turns out she is a neighbor of Hank and Margaret, and they have seen her for years out walking the dogs in the morning but had never spoken. Small world. She reinforced that we need to work on straightening out his toes by massage and using shoes.

Saturday was a slow day. We took him to his grandparents' house for a few hours and went to see a movie, Baby Mama, which was cute. Kate and I gave him another present; we couldn't wait for Sunday.


Sunday was Mother's Day and also Henry's other birthday party. We went to his grandparents' house and had dinner with family and family friends. Henry opened a bunch of presents, and we all had a good time.



On Monday, he had lentils for the first time and enjoyed them. He also started to do a bear crawl (hands and feet on the floor, no knees). He's been doing that more and more all week and now is very good at it, getting faster all the time. Here are some pictures of him crawling over our very patient dog Roger.



On Tuesday, he had another visit from Selah. She commented on how the bear crawl wasn't good, and she thought the physical therapist would have some things for us to do on that front. I felt rather exasperated because to me his progress is so amazing and to try to make him undo behavior seems almost impossible. However, I felt relief when the physical therapist showed up today and thought it was wonderful that he was bear crawling.

Below is a picture of Henry at our front door. The door is glass and Henry has left his mark, those are fingerprints, snot, drool, etc showing up nicely with the flash of the camera.



Wednesday was the doctor's visit which I already mentioned. He weighed 18 lbs 13 ozs. Henry also added another trick; he raises his arms up and down at the part of the Wheels On The Bus song where the people get up and down. So now he can do wheels and up and down. We'll be working on the horn on the bus next. Very cute.

Besides that, we continue our search for a new nanny. Nothing real promising so far. Today he was able to pinch a couple of the peach puffs and get them into his mouth on his own. Most of the time he grabs them into his palm and can't get them into his mouth from there.

A Great Doctor's Visit, Speech Evaluation

Henry had a busy day today. In the afternoon he had a visit from Lisa, a speech therapist, to do an evaluation. She asked a lot of questions and observed him and said he is doing great, right at the point he should be for a 9 month old. She didn't see any need to have more visits but will be available if we should need her should he stop progressing. That was nice to hear.

Later in the afternoon we headed across town to visit Dr. Tsai, the doctor from the NICU that follows up with developmental assessments every 3-6 months. Last visit she thought he was doing well but needed much more tummy time. She had requested he get physical therapy twice a week.

This visit she was absolutely amazed at his development. She played with him, observed him and asked questions. She was impressed by his focus and concentration while exploring new toys and repeatedly used the word "intense" to describe it. She said he is at the 9-10 month level. She was expecting him to be at 6 or 7 months. Looking at him she said he does not show that he was a preemie, he looks like a normal 9 month old. She considers him to be caught up, which normally doesn't happen until they are 2 years old. We will visit her again in 6 months, although she wasn't sure that was necessary and was willing to put things on an as needed schedule.

This, of course, is exactly what we wanted to hear. I figured no doctor or therapist would ever give him a completely clean bill of health, instead opting to point out a small issue here or there to justify their existence. Dr. Tsai has always been a very straight shooter and praise coming from her is particularly valued.

I hate to say this but things are going so well right now with his growth, eating, mobility, and digestive issues that I'm starting to feel a little bit of dread. It seems there is always some other shoe that drops just when things start going well. I hope this time it will be different.

Despite all the set backs, he is doing incredibly well. He certainly could be doing much worse. Today he weighed 18lbs 11oz at the doctors office, however he had just had a large bottle and he had to pee. He managed to pee all over the scale after he was weighed. His head circumference was 45cm and his length was 27 and 5/8 inches. The nurse did the head measurement twice and came up with the same thing, which is great. His head was measured at 44.7cm last Thursday. Either the stuffy head from his cold is causing his head to balloon or they measured it wrong at the pediatricians office, which wouldn't be a first. Now his weight is around the 25th percentile for his adjusted age, his length is between 25-50% and his head circumference is at the 50th percentile. This is more of what we wanted to hear.

A Cold, A Trip to the Pediatrician, and A Swimming Pool

These are pictures of Henry and Frosty the Bull. To give you a sense of size, Frosty is a Beanie Baby. The first picture was taken May 29, 2007. The second picture was taken May 1, 2008.

Henry was sick on his birthday. It got worse Wednesday night after I had completed his birthday blog entry. He woke up, tossing and turning. He had a fever of 101.2 F. We suctioned out his nose, gave him Tylenol, and took off his shirt. He was very amiable as usual and took everything in stride (exception perhaps for the nose suctioning part).

On Thursday morning, Veronica called in sick, so Jeff and I took turns watching Henry. Henry had an appointment with Dr. Bianchi (his pediatrician) in the afternoon. While in the waiting room, Henry did a little bear crawl on the carpet, which was cute. The appointment went well. Henry was 18 lbs 4 ozs, 28 inches long, with a head circumference of 44.7 cm. Dr. Bianchi said he looked great. Henry was scheduled to have two shots. We opted just to give him one (the HepB). We'll take him to get the other shot (can't remember which one it is) in a couple weeks. We are of the opinion that multiple shots should not be given at one time, which brings us to the touchy subject of the MMR.

There has been some debate over potential relationship between the MMR and autism. Several anecdotes (two in our circle of friends/family/acquaintances) suggest to us that there could be a relationship between the two for some kids. The CDC says that there is no relationship. I won't go into details, but I have done a lot of reading, and I'm of the opinion that many of the studies (on both sides) are flawed from a research methods perspective. We wanted to wait for Henry to get the MMR until he was 3 and the brain has accomplished a good deal of its development. Unfortunately, there has been a measles outbreak in Tucson. A Swiss tourist brought it to our community in February. As of early April, there were 10 reported cases. And now, that number has increased to 17. The CDC and doctors in the community are encouraging all parents with kids as young as 6 months old to get the vaccination. Of course, if you go to the Merck website, you'll find out that the vaccine only creates the appropriate immune response in 74% of 6 month olds. This percentage increases to nearly 100% in children who get the vaccine at 15 months old. We are again restricting Henry's public outings (e.g., no more trips to Babies R Us) and have been debating what to do. We have decided to get him the measles shot but we don't want it delivered in the package of the MMR. Merck does make separate shots for measles, mumps, and rubella. When we asked Dr. Bianchi about this, he said that we could call the health department and see if they offer it. I called on Monday and they don't (although they have apparently received many requests for it). Through my preemie message board contacts, I have learned that one needs a doctor to order the separate shots from Merck. This is a problem because Dr. Bianchi doesn't appear to be flexible (he wasn't with the preservative flu shot even though we explicitly said that we would pay for it out of pocket), but we are going to ask him again this week. If that doesn't work, we're going to have to find another pediatrician.


After the appointment, we visited my parents. Henry decided to put food in his hair. By Thursday night, I had obviously contracted Henry's cold. It hit me hard (harder, I think, than it hit Henry). I don't remember much about Friday. I slept in the morning (Veronica was back). We cancelled Henry's home visits with Shirley (PT) and Tara; we didn't want them to get sick. After Veronica left, I got much worse. 102 F temperature and chills. Wasn't pretty.










On Saturday, my parents thought they were coming down with it. Luckily, neither they nor Jeff got the extreme version of it that I had. Despite the fact that Henry, Jeff, and I still had sniffles, we actually had a lovely day. Henry got up at 7AM, but then crashed on Jeff shortly thereafter. He didn't wake up until 10:15AM or so, keeping Jeff trapped in bed. They missed out on seeing the deer that were hanging out in our backyard. We set up the baby pool in the back patio. Henry and Jeff got in and splashed around. Henry loved it. Henry took a long nap with me in the afternoon. What can I say? It was a nice family day.










I almost forgot. Henry shakes his head from side to side when we say the word "no." He doesn't appear to connect it to its meaning (e.g., stop, don't do that, etc.). He was pulling apart the leaves of one of the house plants. I said, "Henry, no." He shook his head from side to side. I couldn't help but laugh (failing to reinforce the meaning of the word, but it was very funny).



On Sunday, Henry visited my parents. Jeff and I dropped him off and went to see "Iron Man." Came home. I did a lot of catch work for school. Jeff worked on baby-proofing our house some more. Henry had a good day exploring my parents' house. He apparently checked out all of the rooms. He loves being mobile.

We were supposed to have Henry's birthday celebration with my parents, sister and brother-in-law, Lucinda, Uncle Jim, and Uncle Dan on Sunday. With Henry, Jeff, my parents, and me sick, however, we postponed it until this coming Sunday. Although we felt pretty good Sunday, we didn't want to spread the cold to others. So that means that Henry hasn't opened his birthday gifts yet.

Yesterday (Monday), Henry was busy as usual. I think that he's getting better. An interesting development on our walks. When he hit the half way point, I always do some stretches and Jeff copies me, with Henry in the Baby Bjorn. The last four times or so, when we reach the point where I stretch up, Henry does it first. It is so cute!

That just about covers the last several days. Jeff will report tonight on our visit from the speech therapist this afternoon and our visit with Dr. Tsai at the developmental clinic.