February 23, 2006

February 23rd, 2006 | by Matt |

Kevin’s now just over 12 pounds and growing steady. He seems to be developing at a normal pace, maybe just a little bit behind the curve. This is normal, we’ve been told, for babies who spend so much time in the hospital after they are born. He really likes to amuse himself now with batting at the toys on his playmat and kicking things. He definitely finds some things funny, but he doesn’t really laugh out loud yet. He does “coo” quite a bit more and gets quite vocal when he’s mad.

He has quite a little attitude already, too. When he takes his meds he looks at us like he’s the world’s biggest victim and he’ll spit or cough to make sure we know he doesn’t like it. When we try to give him his binky when he doesn’t want it he’ll gag and do little fake coughs and then smile like he knows we know he’s faking. We still have a daily target of food to feed him to keep him growing at a good pace – some days he takes it easily and some days it’s quite a fight to get him to eat the full amount. When he doesn’t want to eat any more, he certainly makes it known. Dawn usually has the required technique and patience to make him finish up, though. If it weren’t for her persistance, he certainly wouldn’t be gaining all the weight he is supposed to!

We’re also still charting most of what he does – how often he eats, how much, how often he spits up, pees, and poops – all tracked in an Excel spreadsheet. This allows us to over-analyze things like his food intake chart and his weight chart. It also means we know stats that most people don’t! Since he’s been home, he’s eaten almost 1,200 ounces in almost 500 bottle feedings. He’s peed about 375 times, pooped about 150 times, and spit up about 120 times. Far more detail than anyone ever wanted to know! 🙂

The visiting nurse is only coming every two weeks now. Kevin sees the dermatologist again tomorrow to check on the red bumps he’s had on his back since after we got home. He sees his regular pediatrician again in two weeks, then the cardiologist in three and a half weeks. He’s still on his meds twice a day. There are still no signs of any trouble, but we are of course always watching him closely. Issues can still pop up, and there are still lingering issues like his leaky valves so the fear of new problems is always on our minds. Also, we carefully watch his developmental progress to make sure he’s on track there. But so far there’s nothing to worry about that we know of, so we stay positive!