Early On #2

Max had his first "official" assessment yesterday.

Joy, who is our assigned travel-nurse, brought Katie the dietician along to help with the evaluation. The first words out of Katie's mouth in site of Max was, "Wow! Is he fat....!" With that response, any concerns about his diet were abrubtly put to rest.

As far as his developmental skills are concerned, he passed with flying colors. How he holds his head, arm movement, holding a rattle, following an object or person across his field of vision with his eyes while turning his head, going cross-eyed while following and object to his nose, smiling, etc., were all parts of the equation. Even little things we had no idea about like "bringing his arm to his midline" popped up during his appointment.

One month skills: check, check, check, check...
Two month skills: check, check, check, check...
Three month skills: check, check....

There were only a couple of things in the three month checklist he hasn't quite got the hang of yet: reaching for things, and chuckling. We know he's on the verge of both though. His smiles are too big not to be laughing soon, and he's been watching his own hands off and on lately.

Joy basically said if it wasn't for his continued reflux, she wouldn't even have to come back in a month, versus waiting two.

We're real proud of our short, "stocky", little boy-genius.

Doctor's appointment next week so we'll have a weight update. Keep in mind I said "stocky".

What 3 months can mean...

I was just going through some of the first pictures and just experienced a pretty heavy reality check.

The pictures say it all.

"Let my soul smile ..."

"Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts."-Paramahansa Yogananda

In Max's case, the goals and milestones you read about your baby supposedly reaching in his first year and beyond are a bit out of whack. Everything you read about is based on a baby going full term, and as we all know, Max was just a little bit early.

Some of Max's developmental progress seems to be on track for how old he actually is, and some on track for how old he "should" be based on his due date. We like to think he received a head start in some ways but we're not too worried if he lags a little behind in others.

After two unnecessarily verbose paragraphs I'll finally come to the point of this post: Maxwell is smiling.

We're not talking your everyday, hundred-yard stare, I'm-passing-gas little drooling grins. We're talking look-you-in-the-eyes-my-grin's-bigger-than-yours-as I open my mouth wide-make-my-mom and dad crack-up-and-then-melt type smile. And then it's gone and he's looking at you with a furrowed brow like you're the craziest thing he's ever seen.

The funny thing is we have better luck getting him to smile while asking him questions. It doesn't matter what the question is. His favorite seems to be, "You have a burp stuck in there for me...?" But it could just as easily be, "What's your thoughts on Obama...?" or "Who's your favorite Redwing...?" It must be an intonation thing.

It's easy to get into a funk when your kid isn't doing things as soon as he should be. Taking a step back, he IS doing things just as he SHOULD be. With a few things, depending how you look at it, he's ahead.

And the smiles wipe all those doubts away.


(Thanks to Nanny for this pic...)

Talent

We know babies spit up.

We know babies sometimes throw up.

How the hell max launched about 2 ounces of hour-old milk over the 4-inch wall of his "snuggle nest" at Mom with nary a drop on himself is completely beyond me...

Time to wash the bedding. Again.

"All night"

Something was odd this morning when my wife elbowed me in the ribs to get up and get a bottle going. The odd feeling is best described as not feeling like crap and that I didn't really have to pry open my eyes as we have twice a night, every night, since November 16th, 2007.

The answer to this unexplained feeling smacked me in the head when my eyes focused on the alarm clock. 7:00 A.M. Damn.

Now, my wife tells me it's considered sleeping "all night" if your baby sleeps five hours or longer. Though Max has met that goal a few times, it hasn't really felt like he's slept "all night" until now. Most nights (mornings) we're usually up at 4 or 5 A.M., stumbling around the dark upstairs to warm a bottle, and then propping our eyelids open so we don't fall over and smother the poor kid while feeding him.

Do we dare say Max made it through the night? Do we dare rest our hopes and dreams of yawn-free days and sleep-filled, dreamy nights on the fact our boy made it "all night" without gently waking his parents and oh-so-politely asking for meal?

Maybe it's still just an exercise in patience. (I'm sure our parents could graciously elaborate on that last sentence.)

Boy in a Bubble

We seem to be developing a pattern here... Grandma ML just couldn't help herself either.

Someday we'll be a healthy lot...

First Annual

What do you get when you have a desperate Nanny, who's been sick for two weeks and not able to see her Michigander grandson...?

You get Dad's crazy mother driving twenty minutes to spell out "♥U" with red food coloring in the snow, plop down and make a snow angel, and then gaze lovingly through a steamed up living room window to get just a little Max fix. And then drive back home.

Nanny earns the first ever "Crazy Grandparent Award." (attention all grandparents: You too can earn your way to this esteemed award and into a feature article published in I Am Max.)

Maxwell has absolutely no lack of loving relatives on every front.