Early April Update

CURRENT WEIGHT: 9 LBS, 11.5 OUNCES (Last measured 2 weeks ago)
ADJUSTED AGE: 4 MONTHS
CHRONOLOGICAL AGE: 8 MONTHS

Truman smiling for his Mama

Practicing his baby stare

A little bit of tummy time

An afternoon at the arboretum - Truman's first ever outing

Observing the flowers with Granpa

As of this afternoon, Truman has spent more time at home than he did at the hospital. He spent 17 weeks to the day in NICU and has been for 17 weeks today.

Truman had another great pediatrician appointment last month. His most recent growth rate was 19 grams (2/3 of an ounce) a day. Since he's doing so well developmentally, is finished with RSV shots for the season, and is otherwise healthy, the doctor said he doesn't have to come back for a month. So, Truman's next medical appointment is with his occupational therapist on April 20. That means he'll have gone a full month without a medical appointment. He'll have a pediatrician appointment the week after that, and hopefully we will get the OK to come out of isolation. We have now officially retired all of the preemie clothes and (although they are a bit bulky on him) have moved to 0 to 3 month clothes.

He had his first non-medical outing about three weeks ago. We took him to the Dallas Arboretum while his Lubbock grandparents were visiting. Although it is a public place, it is completely outdoors, so we felt OK about the exposure. He lasted four hours before he decided it was time to go home. You can see a couple of shots from that above.

Developmentally, his latest trick is that rolls up onto his side a lot during play and while sleeping and rolled all the way onto his tummy while sleeping one night. He is also tolerating more tummy time and will now occasionally coo and reach and grab toys while on his tummy and is doing a better job of holding his head all the way up while on his tummy, as you can see above. He still is not a big fan of the exercise, but he is getting stronger and often now just rolls over when he gets tired of his tummy rather than crying about it and waiting for us to help him roll. We also think the tummy time is also strengthening his stomach muscles and helping to lessen his umbilical hernia. We've been told by his pediatrician that the hernia will simply heal itself over time as he develops muscle tone. His OT is also happy with his increased strength and better toleration of tummy time.

Truman is also cooing a lot more and and in a lot more situations and has learned to make some coo-like sounds other than crying to indicate displeasure as well as happiness. We have been practicing sitting up, and he is getting stronger every day. He has sort of a chuckle sound as well that we hope develops into a full-blown laugh soon. He loves to hold to a set of plastic links we have and puts them in his mouth, changes hand with them, and generally likes to play with them. He has also taken to holding onto burp cloths and fabric "lovey" toys and pulling them over his face and chewing on them.

Truman continues to have colic just about every night for an hour or two, and while we had hoped that the nightly screaming had peaked a couple of weeks ago (we even had to resort to driving him around in his car seat to get him to sleep at one point - as nothing else would calm him down), unfortunately it now seems that it plans to stick around for a while yet. Yet as hard as the screaming is on us, our hearts just ache for Truman because it's bound be be even harder for him.

I want to send a personal thank you to all of you who have donated at Truman's March of Dimes Walk America page. We are going to be walking on a team with his nurses and some other NICU families.

--Kara