SEVEN MONTHS OLD!

Well, our Samuel is now seven months old, on the brink of getting his new funky "I have a wonky skull" helmet and heading into fall. In addition to back-to-school adjustments, we have lots of appointments in the next couple of weeks: head shape clinic times four (regarding aforementioned helmet), ophthalmology (at last getting more info and hopefully help for his vision), respiratory/diaphragmatic hernia clinic, and cardiology clinic.

My favourite appointments are the home care team that comes to our house - the nurse, respiratory therapist and sometimes physiotherapist who check his weight and his oxygen and offer me extra guidance on his development. They appear to adore him and this is so comforting and lovely for me. They are like my hospital people away from the hospital, my "you are not left totally alone with caring for him" and "we will celebrate with you as he gets better" folks.

And Samuel does continue to get better! Here are some of his new tricks:

He can do that sitting thing where I pull him up and position him in a sit and then back away just a few inches so I can catch him when he does the slow topple. Heehee.

He is teething and has gained the ability to push many fingers into his mouth all at one time, because apparently plain old single-thumb sucking is not good enough for this boy.

He doubled his birth weight of 6 pounds 8 ounces, which would be exactly on track for his adjusted age of 6 months. He is over 13 pounds and is 26 inches long.

He's started making noise when he laughs. And there might be just a few people around here who will do any manner of ridiculous things to inspire said laughter. The new noise is part of an overall scrunching up his hands and pulling his neck into his body and smiling with his whole face and opening his mouth really wide. And then the noise that comes out is kind of like this:

"heh"

Then when he's really worked up, like so full of mirth that he can't stand it, he sounds like this:

"rrrrr [throaty growl] heh"

Post-bath giggling.

He is starting to transition out of needing his NG tube. He has it in less than half of the time now. Otherwise, he takes his meds orally and takes all of his calories by bottle. I put the NG back in after a few days when he seems to be tiring out and he gets some top-ups for a few feeds, then we take it out again.

I am delighted to think we may not need the NG at all someday soon. I don't love seeing the tube sticking out of his nose and the tape on his face. He is more likely to gag and reflux when it's in. (Which is maybe why he took to pulling it out himself - which is how we discovered that he didn't really need it ALL the time.) And every so often there is a defective tube where the little cap on the end doesn't close properly but you don't know until it's already in his belly and who wants to start that over again unnecessarily?! So we live with it but a simple cough can force partially digested food up through his tube where it leaks all over until we notice. Sam can actually throw up on us surreptitiously! While I appreciate the efficiency of this method and the lesson in a new form of incontinence, it is gross.

He is starting to be more interactive with his brothers and they are finding new and somewhat questionable ways to play with him. A case in point, the baby blanket fort.


My baby in the fort. Underneath the blankets and pillows. Um, yea.



Before you go dialing Child Protective Services, he's actually safe in there.

And even happy. (And well-supervised by grown-ups. Really.)

Other forms of entertainment include reading books, playing with toys, and experimenting with new configurations for his nasal prongs.


Daniel has taken on reading to Sam as his big brother task. Which is lovely.

 

Jakey enjoys arranging and offering toys for Sam. I am not sure Sam also enjoys it. But maybe.

He seems very pleased with his new oxygenated eyeballs.
(And whoa! Look at that hair sticking up!)

There is an ongoing evolution of nicknames, including Samalama-ding-dong (fun), Samarai (warrior reference), Samsonite (toughness reference), Salmon (swimming upstream towards goal but notably omitted breeding reference), Noonch-ka (I have no idea), and Schniggernin (whuck?!).

Chris took the big boys camping so I got to have a date where it was just Sam and I for 48 hours. The first night I posted my reflections here and felt rather self-indulgent for doing so. But within an hour I felt this sense of release, like I had let a piece of the yuckies go. Sam and I settled down to watch The Joy Luck Club and cuddle. At one point he was falling asleep and I went to put him in his bed. But then I wrapped him up in my arms and put a blanket all around us and turned off the movie. And I watched him fall asleep snuggled close into my body, felt him go all heavy and soft as he slept. And it was the very best feeling ever.

Blissin' out with Sam.