Batteries not Included

Welcome to our newly improved, upside down, topsy turvy, sleep-deprived, busy, beautiful life. Samuel is doing great! If I were to guess, I'd say that he is probably very close to six pounds at the moment. We have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday so we should find out then.

I put my hand down to give you some scale of how big he is now.

I've been cramming in as much tummy time as we can get since we've been home. I'm hoping to make up for the four months without it. Last Friday, I had Samuel on the couch and he decided to roll over on his own. I thought....ok, that was a fluke.....there is no way he just did that. However, I was pleasantly surprised when time after time I would place him on his belly and he would manage to flip over. When Michael came home that evening Samuel showed him as well. This weekend we went to visit my parents, and when I went to demonstrate Samuel's amazing talent, he would struggle and struggle but to no avail. Come to find out, my couch at home has a bit of a slant to it.....just enough to help him roll. Oh well.

Since the baby showers, I have been anticipating the moment where I would break out one of Samuel's toys, he would stare at it with wonder while a tiny smile crept upon his sweet face. Ha. That's funny. The first time I brought out a toy it was met with fear instead of joy. I've tried a variety but none seem to do it for him yet. Even his mobiles elicit a steady stream of hysterical cries rather than the glowing smile I had imagined. All I can think to do is expose him to them over and over until he learns to love them.

Samuel's not happy with the mobile that attaches to his rocker.

Our living room has been converted into a temporary room for Samuel. The first few nights Samuel was home, Michael and I put him in the bedroom with us.....only to find out that neither of us were getting any sleep despite the 'shifts' that we assigned ourselves. Although his nursery is complete (thanks to the hard work of my husband, my dad, and the guys of our community group), we don't feel good about putting Samuel in there by himself until he comes off of the oxygen. So at the moment, the living room contains a hand-me-down-propped-up-Pack-N-Play, an oxygen concentrator, an oxygen tank, a pulse ox monitor, and Samuel's very important rocker. We have to prop up the Pack-N-Play because of Samuel's reflux issues. Hopefully he will outgrow that sooner than later.

The gray machine to the left is the oxygen concentrator. It takes the oxygen from the room air, concentrates it, and puts it through Samuel's tube.

Probably my least favorite activity of the day is bottle feeding. Each week we are supposed to increase his feeds by 5 mls....but the previous week's amount is hard enough to get down him. This week I decided to feed Samuel every 2 and a half hours instead of 3 hours. That way, I wouldn't have to feed him so much at once. I can't decide if it's helped or not. He has this predictable routine of taking 3/4ths of the bottle then stopping. We've luckily found his magic button for burping (which has taken us nearly a month and a half to do) and that helps some. I'm thinking that we are wearing him out by feeding him so much.... I guess this will just be trial and error.

You know the baby books that everyone reads to help them know what to do with their baby and what milestones they should be meeting? Those books are only minimally helpful to me. Samuel is SO VERY exceptional and they just don't apply. Even the preemie section in the "What to Expect the First Year" only discusses what to do for preemies that weren't nearly as early. My very sweet mother bought me some preemie books that I'm excited about. Hopefully they will yield more useful information than other baby books.

Sleep is still rare....I'm running out of batteries. But of course it's all worth it. :)