Playing Catch Up.

It's been a little while since this space was updated, so I am going to do some catching up, which is apropos, as Ayden has been playing catch up, too...

It should come as no surprise that in some areas, Ayden is behind where a "normal" baby his age would be.  This is mostly due to the large amount of time he has spent lying on his back in the hospital.  He's approaching the ten month mark, but spending time on his stomach and sitting up on his own are relatively new concepts for him.  Fortunately, we are making some headway in both areas.

He is increasingly comfortable on his stomach.  He spends more time that way before getting cranky.  He can easily keep his head upright so that he can look around and investigate.  He has even started to attempt playing with his toys while on his stomach.  These are all good things.  In the last few days, he has also figured out how to roll from his stomach onto his back without any assistance from us.  This is a good thing, too, albeit a bit counterproductive when it's supposed to be "tummy time." (He has almost all the mechanics of the reverse - going from back to stomach - down, but he hasn't quite mastered getting the arm he must roll over out of the way.)

Sitting up is also coming along.  At least in part, I believe our ability to now carry him upright, rather than having to cradle him, is contributing to progress here.  When carrying him that way, I initially had to use one arm to keep him from flopping over backwards, away from me.  Now, there's no need for that.  He can turn and bend and reach and move without losing his balance.  It's obvious his core muscles are getting stronger.  I think he now has the strength to support himself in a sitting position and to keep himself upright, as long as he doesn't lean too far in any particular direction.  He has absolutely no clue how to get himself into a sitting position, but I think he is close to being able to keep himself there if we start him off.

Ayden's ability to support, and thus control, his upper body in a sitting position has opened up a whole new world to him - the world of his jumper.  We bought him one several weeks ago.  At first, he would lean against the inside rim of the seat and hang his arms over the "railing."  It looked like he was draped over an inner tube riding down a lazy river.  Since then, his improved core strength and coordination have allowed him to move around and turn within the seat.  He is no longer stuck playing with whatever happens to be in front of him.  Instead, he can access multiple of the jumper's assorted toys.  And he loves it.

Another area in which he's catching up is in feeding.  Unfortunately, I'm not talking about his eating (progress is making made here, but it's coming at an interminably slow pace).  Instead, I'm referring to the number of times we feed him each day.  Months ago, we shifted him to six feeds a day - i.e., every four hours.  Not so long ago, Allison and I took the first step towards removing one of those feeds, shrinking the size of the 4 a.m. feed and spreading the difference out over the other five.  Eventually, we got the pediatrician's blessing to take the remaining steps to completely remove that feed.  We took another chunk off of it and spread it out over the others.  We were going to wait a week and then remove the rest.  Ayden, however, had other plans.  A couple of days after we took out the second chunk, we awoke sometime between the midnight and 4 a.m. feed to Ayden screaming bloody murder, rather than his standard, I-want-my-pacifier cry.  Upon entering his room, I quickly discovered why he was so unusually upset.  Despite being covered with a mitten, his little hand had gotten ahold of his feeding tube.  He then managed to pull with enough force to dislodge all of the tape anchoring it to his face and to get the tube halfway out of his nose.  We had no choice but to pull it the rest of the way out and wait until morning to put in a new one.  That made the 4 a.m. feed not an option for that night.  It has not returned since.

His hand dexterity has also improved of late, as evidenced by his ability to grab his feeding tube while wearing mittens.  He can pick up whatever toy he is interested in at the time.  He is discovering that he can spin/turn/shake/rattle/etc. certain things.  Tonight, he was content to spin a ring around a curved bar section of a toy, with only his thumb.  A couple of weeks ago, he would have done nothing more than hold onto the bar.

Like other things, his increasing hand coordination has its ups and downs.  The downs mostly have to do with Ayden sticking his fingers in his mouth and gagging himself.  He has been teething a lot over the last week.  It has been quite obvious that his gums have been hurting.  Ayden's solution, which is a completely reasonable one, is to gnaw on whatever object is available.  Oftentimes, that object is one of his hands.  This wouldn't be a problem, except that he gets a bit irresponsible with them.  He fails to realize it's not a good idea to jam his hand in his mouth at certain times - in the middle of a yawn, when he's coughing, when some reflux is bubbling up.  In those instances, the hand in the mouth produces spit up, or in serious cases, vomit.  (In the middle of one recent night, he puked while his hand was in his mouth, causing a jet stream of vomit to spray all over his face and head - think of using your thumb to almost close up the open end of a garden hose while the water's turned on.  That was a fun night.)  Teething in and of itself is obviously a miserable experience.  When it's happening concurrently with reflux, it's that much worse.

On the doctor front...  He got what I think is the next to last RSV shot last week  He returns to see Dr. K. next week, before which he'll get an x-ray to make sure the fluid is still staying away.  He also has a pediatrician visit next week.  He is continuing his weekly time with his "teacher," who works with him on his fine motor skills.  He will probably get regular visits from a physical therapist soon, too.  His first visit to the feeding therapist was supposed to be this week, but she came down with a case of the flu.  We'll now be waiting a couple of weeks before that starts.

At the RSV appointment, he weighed in at well over 18 lbs., so despite the sometimes substantial vomiting, he is gaining weight.  What Ayden seems to be doing the most of right now is getting longer, which presents some clothes fitting issues.  Most of our problems are with pajamas.  His torso no longer fits in 9 month pajamas.  12-18 month ones work fine in that area, but they are way too long in the arms and legs.  Much like what I deal with when buying clothes, shirts that are long enough for him are way to big around.

What else?  His emotional range is widening.  He is beginning to express displeasure in ways other than crying.  He is more than happy to let us know if we are doing something he doesn't like.  On the flip side, we have started reprimanding him when he does something we don't like.  One often follows the other.  For the most part, he handles the correction well, though sometimes his feelings get really hurt and he gets very upset.  He gets bored if you keep him in one spot for too long.  He will get excited for no apparent reason at times and will bounce around and flail like a crazy person.  He still likes me to toss him around.  He still likes taking trips to Target.  He has become a big fan of the orange pillows we keep on the couch.  Overall, he is sleeping and napping pretty well.  When he doesn't, teething seems to be the main culprit.