Rump Kicker

The Easter outfit. He's got bunnies on his feet and funnies on his face.

Now he just has lunch on his face. This is the result when he tries to help with the solid foods.

I didn't get a picture on my camera, but Aunt Traci came to visit this weekend. She hasn't seen him since Xmas and had a couple of days off. I think he might actually be double the weight. He is up to 16 pounds now. I know a lot of people hae asked, and yes - Jordan is over his fever. We never really found out what caused it, but we are thinking it has something to do with teething. I knew something was wrong because he had a fever, but I didn't realize that he was acting differently until he got back to normal. He stopped laughing for a couple of days and had no interest in playing with toys. I didn't notice that until he started laughing and playing again. He kicked that fever's butt!

Wednesday was a visit to the pulmonologist. Naturally my boy kicked butt! He is now supposed to be on the oxygen only at night. In practice, he is only on the oxygen for about 2 or 3 hours. We put the cannula in at bedtime and he usually has it out by midnight. We tried taping the cannula to his face, but he still pulls it off - and that really irritates his face. The next step is to schedule a sleep study. That will be in a few weeks. We will hook him up to a machine that measures the amount of O2 in his blood while he sleeps. If he desats (remember that?) then he fails the test. If he doesn't desat then they will start making plans to get the 50 gallon container of rocket fuel out of my bedroom.

Thursday was the day for developmental assessment. When you are a premature as Jordan, it's a good idea to have professionals check the development. He is 4 and a half months since his due date so they checked his development for a 4 month old. He kicked butt! He was not perfect, but he did well. He stands well, always deals with other people great, and is a representation of physical perfection. Well, not perfection, but he's pretty good. There are a few things that we will need to work on. He is close to sitting up, but not there yet and we have excerises for that. He stands well for his age, but he doesn't stand as straight as he should. He can turn to his side, but not all the way from front to back. Overall his ratings were good, but they did recommend him for some follow up visits. The main thing is that he needsto be followed for some time still because of the prematurity, but the therapists thought he was doing really well.

Nursing Trouble

Last night after work, Jordan was a little hot. He was over 99 degrees and not wearing a lot of clothes. He wasn’t complaining or anything, but he just kept getting hotter. By 10pm he was 102 degrees. He started hollering in a way he rarely does. He usually cries only when he’s hungry or really wet, but this time he was inconsolable. He was crying so hard that he vomited the meal from 2 hours earlier, and immediately fell asleep.

Anyway, the 102 degrees alone was enough to call the doctor, and he told us to go to the emergency room. We left home at 10:30 pm. When Jordan was first examined by the nurse it was really weird. He asked us some of the medical history (where to begin?), and not being a NICU nurse he didn’t understand terms like BPD, CLD, or PDA. It made me feel really smart to explain this stuff to a trained medical professional. Then he gave Jordan some Tylenol and a pill. He also took Jordan’s temperature. There’s only one way to give a 16 pound baby a pill – they don’t swallow too well. Also, in the NICU they took the temperature by sticking the probe in the armpit. As I said, this guy wasn’t a NICU nurse. Let’s just say that he got the pill first and then had a body temp of 103.

When you come into the ER with a baby on oxygen and apnea monitor, and a 103 degree fever, you don’t have to wait too long to see a doctor – we saw ours at midnight. He was already coming down from the fever, but he was very tired and couldn’t sleep with all of these strangers and strange things.

The doctor prescribed some medicine and would have let us go home – except Jordan is a special little boy. We had to stay for chest X-rays and blood work. He didn’t like the chest x-ray. For the blood work, the nurse said that she was going to insert an IV just in case the blood work came back and he needed fluids or other stuff. Jordan has not had an IV in many months. In fact, Jordan had an IV put in for his birthday and had one in him somewhere for almost 3 months. I convinced myself then that because he never knew life without an IV or needles (or pain), that was why he never cried. Just like he loves baby food because he’s never tasted fried chicken. Anyway, that was then. Last night I held his left hand while the nurse placed an IV in his right. I held his head facing toward me so he wouldn’t see the needle. When the needle went in, he looked me in the eyes and my heart broke. I know that that is part of being a parent, but I felt almost as if I betrayed him. Next time he gets an IV he’s going to have to look at the nurse – they are used to it. The worst part of it was that this wasn’t a NICU nurse, so she couldn’t really find such a small vein and she never placed the IV, she just got a blood sample.

The results finally came back and everything was normal. The baby was 16 pounds 2 ounces (7314 grams to those who are still counting) and exhausted. His body temp was down to 99 degrees. The mama Ali and I bickered about something unimportant on the way out of the hospital, but that was just blowing off steam when you have your baby in the ER after 2am. We got home at 2:30. The baby had already forgotten the IV and his parents quickly fell asleep.

Special Treat

Sitting up

And Stepping out.

First of all, this is a special treat. It took over 45 minutes to download these videos so don't expect 2 in 1 post a lot. I included these two videos because they were so cute. Especially the 2nd one. He stands up all the time now - as long as we hold him. He even has started to play with his toys. It's still cute because he only plays with what we give him and stands up only when we hold him. We only have a couple of months left for all of that.

Play and Hate

The baby has started to throw up more. He will vomit at least daily and more than once if we aren’t careful. We can’t play with him too much for about an hour after eating and putting him on the shoulder is pretty much a bad idea when he’s awake. Due to the drooling, he is always wearing a bib anyway, but between the drool and vomit he goes through at least 6 or 7 bibs per day. He only goes through 4 or 5 bottles. Things would probably be worse if he wasn’t sleeping through the night. The good news is that he is sleeping through the night almost all the time. The main thing that wakes him up overnight is pretty much him. He hates wearing the cannula, and leaving it taped on irritates the skin, so he spends all of his time trying to pull it off. At night he will shake his head back and forth until it comes off. Sometimes it will move down until it’s around his neck. Other times it will move up until it’s around his eyes. That’s when he has to call the parents.

Jordan and I have started playing together. It is so cool that I can do something and have him react. Before, I couldn’t get him to do anything, but now. Our favorite game is play and hate. I sit Jordan on my lap facing me. Then I start making funny noises and laughing. He thinks that is pretty fun so he laughs too. Then I laugh. Then he laughs. We keep going back and forth for a few minutes until he’s nice and happy. Then I hand him to his mother. He is still looking at me because of all the interaction. That means he either still focuses on me and laughing while sitting on her lap, or he starts looking at her and stops laughing. She hates that.

Finally, I learned something about babies this past week. I thought that the next developmental stages for him would be starting to reach for his toys. Babies are supposed to reach for things that they want and we’ve been looking forward to that. No one told me that before babies can reach, they first must swing. I was trying to get him to grab my nose this past weekend. He swung his arm and punched me. Hard! He thought it was funny.

4 months since his due date.

When I took ths picture, I realized he was no longer a newborn. He doesn't let us hold him like this when he is awake, and this usually wakes him up. Cuddles and kangaroo care are striclty past tense for him.

Does this kid look like he is even a little interested in cuddling? He is mostly interested in his feet because he wants to get up and walk around.

This kid loves to laugh. He just won't do it here because he is distracted by the camera. The easiest way to get him to laugh now is to give him handful of applesauce and let him feed himself. He smears it over his face and then licks his fingers later. Seriously though, he smiles really easy when he's playing.

Jordan is on less oxygen now. He was already on the lowest flow, but after Friday's doctor appointment, he now is off the oxygen for 8 consecutive hours per day! He is also off the damn montior during the day as well. That means we get to take him out more and we can carry less. He is ready to totally come off now of course. At xmas, he would shake his head to get the cannula out of his nose. At groundhogs day he would pull it out if we didn't tape it to his face. Now, he will pull the whole cannula of his face even if it's taped down. And of course he doesn't pull up, he pulls down until it is wrapped nice and neat around his neck. There is nothing quite like the experience of waking up at 6 am to find your baby snuggled up with his face buried in the side of the crib and a plastic noose around his neck.

We have a rather unique situtation with the baby that we never planned for. Preemies tend to try and catch up physically to kids born on their birthday. That means that he is already bigger than most kids born on his due date - 4 months ago today. In fact he is on the lower edge of the growth curve for his actual birthday. The problem is that mentally he is developing the same as kids born on his due date. That means physically he is over 6 months, but mentally is at 4. He weighs 15 pounds 2 ounces. He can't sit up yet. He has the muscle control of a 4 month old, but his head is much bigger. In fact, he gave his mother a busted lip last week. At 15 pounds most kids try to crawl. We have to carry him. At 15 pounds, some kids try to hold their bottles. I actually think Jordan could hold his bottle if he wanted to, but he knows he has a good deal going right now. I am not and will not complain about his size for several years yet, but his clothes are 6-9 month size for crying out loud. He weighs more than double what he was when he came home.