Howdy,
Well, it's been an eventful month! Spencer had his first ever illness ... it started out as croup, complete with the barking seal cough and everything, poor little guy. Thankfully, after twelve days worth of prescription medicine, it cleared up and he's now as good as new.
A couple of weeks ago was Spencer's pediatrician check-up and Dr. Cieslak said he couldn't be more pleased with his progress. He weighed, measured, poked and prodded Spencer and at the end of the appointment, he said for me to "bring Spencer back when he is one year old unless you have any concerns up until then, but I sure don't anticipate any, you have one completely strong and healthy baby there"!!! Wow, music to a preemie parent's ears. ; ) Believe me, I don't take a single thing for granted and am so thankful that we're so lucky that Spencer is doing so well. He truly is our little miracle.
On the same day as the pediatrician appointment, Spencer had his follow-up eye exam with the pediatric optometrist. His eyes are healthy and fine. "No glasses or other corrective measures required", she said! Another stroke of good luck and another reason to thank our lucky stars. And believe me, I do. EVERY DAY! : )
For a few weeks now, Spencer has "graduated" to solid foods. He started out with rice cereal and has since made the rounds through oat, barley and as of today, wheat. So far no allergies to any of it and once we make our way through this package of wheat cereal, we'll start in on the veggies. Can I just say though, how much he LOVES the food? At one of our preemie groups, I was told that oftentimes, preemies have a hard time eating and can choke and gag on the cereal when they first start on it. Well, from the get go, Spencer has downed every mouthful and more times than not, will cry for more as I'm putting the next spoonful on the spoon! In other words, I can't get it into his mouth fast enough! Pretty funny.
Two weekends ago, Drew and I took him swimming for the first time. He starts lessons on the 11th of April (this coming Sunday), so we wanted to bring him to the pool a couple of times first, so he'd be somewhat used to the water. We take him to the pool right around the corner from us (it's a 7 minute walk, which will be super nice in the summer!) and - thank god - it's as warm as a bathtub and is also ozonated, which means there's not much chlorine in it. When Spencer first got in the water, he was looking around with a very apprehensive look on his face - not scared, not upset, just a look of "where am I and what is this?" It was pretty cute. By the end though, he was splashing his arms, kicking his legs and squealing .. he loved it!
As of today, he now weighs ... get this, 19lbs 10.5 oz! He gained 3 lbs this past month - holy cow, a big boy he is turning out to be. Length-wise, he's now 69 cm (up 3 cm from last month) and head circumference is at 44.5 cm (up 1 cm from last month). If you go by percentiles (some people swear by them, others don't think they mean much - I'm somewhere in the middle), he's now at the 84th for head circumference (was 81st last month), 93rd for weight (was 73rd last month) and 89th for length (was 85th last month) when measured against other 5 month old babies. If we were to measure him with other 8 month olds (which is Spencer's "chronological" age), he'd be in the 40th for head circumference, the 49th for weight and the 33rd for length. Last month, it was 30th, 12th and 18th (when measured with other 7 month olds). So, this month has certainly been a good growing month for our little man!
All is well. Personality-wise, Spencer is still a happy, easygoing baby who smiles easily and loves to gab away to all who will listen. He still sucks his thumb from time to time ... a habit neither Drew or I want him to have (I was a thumb sucker and had the buck teeth and braces to prove it, ouch - not fun!) ... so Drew has come up with a way to try and put a stop to it -- by putting socks on his hands! Not sure if it'll work, but it's worth a try, haha! Take it from me, thumb sucking is a tough habit to break and never starting in the first place is the best way to break it! Socks don't taste nearly as good as a nice, soggy thumb, so we're hoping this'll do the trick. ; )
Well, I guess that's all the "new news" until next month. Please scroll down for some recent pictures .. I've uploaded 8 for you all to see!
Thanks for reading and take care, everyone ...
Tara, Drew & Spencer xoxo
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
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