Monday, April 21, 2008

Photo Update

We went to the park. Do you think he enjoyed it?



I took a quick business trip to San Francisco. I got him a souvenir from Alcatraz.


This is one of my friends from work. He arrived here from China in December. His english name is Andy (I don't know his Chinese name). He has never seen a black infant in person other than Jordan. Jordan has never seen a Chinese person before he met Andy. Andy was pretty happy to meet Jordan and Jordan wanted to taste Andy's shirt.




Jordan still doesn't know what to make of the dogs. He knows that dogs aren't people, but he still doesn't understand the concept of dogs.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Running Low on Oxygen

My boy has made me so proud, but I’ll get to that later. Last Thursday he had another development review with a physical therapist to evaluate him as a 5 month old. He did very well. He can’t sit on his own yet, but he sits well for his age. He puts everything he can into his mouth – usually with two hands. He dealt well with the therapist and didn’t fuss. He has good muscle tone too. Due to the prematurity, they will probably still monitor his development, but he is doing well for his adjusted age.

Jordan did something yesterday that he has never done before. He willingly drank water! Usually we give him a bottle of water and he sucks too hard. Imagine you suck on a straw hard enough to get a milkshake and all you get is a mouth full of water. When that happened in the past he choked a little. However, yesterday he did it right and was able to tolerate the water. He has also started to try and put in his own pacifier. There is nothing cuter than handing him his pacifier and watch what he does with it. He can’t get it in his mouth oriented properly, but he tries so hard. I’ll post a video of it really soon.

Anyway, we need to do a little review. Your blood can hold a certain amount of oxygen. For most of us we have about 95% or more of the maximum amount. Jordan was born so early that his lungs were damaged and when he came home from the hospital he couldn’t stay that high unless we gave him extra oxygen. On Thursday night we let him sleep for the first time (intentionally) without oxygen and he never got below 95% as far as we could see. The results of this test should be getting to the doctor this week. If we are lucky, the doctor will say we no longer need to use any oxygen at all! Worst case scenario, we will have to wait until the May 7th appointment to be released from the gas. We are almost done with the oxygen, but we are still using it at night now until we get clearance from the doctor. Then pretty soon after that we can get rid of the damn monitor. I couldn’t be prouder of how far he has come.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Cow Duty

Jordan is now out of the house. He will be back soon, but he has graduated to the next stage. Before, because he was hooked up to the oxygen tank, he stayed at home while the grandparents came over to watch him. Now, he doesn’t need the oxygen during the day so he can go to their house. Both sets of grandparents have been so helpful watching him for the last 5 ½ months – we don’t know what we would have done without them. They will probably watch Jordan for at least the rest of this year if we asked. After that he will be a toddler and no one can enjoy their retirement chasing after a toddler for 50 hours a week.

My boy has gotten into the habit of cow duty. Cows will eat the grass and store it in the stomach until later when they can chew their cud. Jordan will drink the milk and decide that it was so tasty he will bring it up again. Of course he has a little mouth so it just ends up on his legs, and his clothes, and our clothes, and sometimes the couch. Just about everything except the bibs. After he’s done, he then likes to complain that he is hungry. You know you are a parent when you get used to the smell of fermenting milk combined with bile.