Daniel had his first appointment with the pulmonologist yesterday. Paul was enamored with the office immediately because they have a ledge going all the way around the waiting room, near the ceiling. This of course is the perfect place for a train, which he pointed out to the receptionist. She sighed and said that they did in fact have one, but it wasn't working and the repair guy has a ridiculous waiting list. She gave us some paperwork to fill out, pretty standard, and we were actually called just as I was finishing it. Major, major points, especially after the ridiculousness at the eye doctor's last week.

The appointment went pretty smoothly. They asked a bunch of questions about Daniel's medical history to make sure he qualified for the RSV vaccine. RSV is a nasty little virus that pretty much causes a cold in older children and adults, but can put a baby in the hospital on a vent. It's also particularly contagious, so he can get these shots once a month until April and it cuts his chances of getting RSV in half. The doctor also gave us the okay to discontinue the apnea monitor, which is exciting. It makes me a tiny bit nervous too. I know, I know, I hate the thing and I've been griping about it since about day 3, but now I feel the need to check on him more often.

The only other thing really going on is that we're probably going to be trading in the TT. I love that car, but I'm mostly driving the Jetta now anyway, and it would be handy to have 2 cars that we can all ride in. We're going to look at a Passat wagon tomorrow, and if we like it then we'll probably just trade the TT to Carmax (unless someone wants to buy it from us directly).

--Amy

Amy had me take a few pictures as the little fella is 4 months old today. Between that and the fact that I've been getting hounded to post some pictures... here have a bunch of pictures...


This was back when we were rooming in at the hospital. We had just gotten settled in and sat down to relax. It was our unfortunate luck that the very first movie we would watch together was the last half hour of Battlefield Earth. Though laughably bad, Daniel wisely slept through it. I guess he's too young to appreciate the slipshod writing and just how infeasible it is that millennia-old fighter jets just happen to start right up.



Poor lighting and the swing is swinging forward and back at a decent clip made this a difficult picture to take. Actually, it's the best of about 30 photos of him swinging away in the swing. Anyway, I manage to finally get a good, clear picture and the end result looks like we just plopped him in the seat and waited for him to be calm. Sheesh...



There, it's posted. You can stop bugging me now.



It took my sister a few days to finally get the courage to hold Daniel. They're really not as fragile as folks claim. I'm not saying you can use a baby to tenderize meat or anything, but as long as you support their heads then there's not a lot you can do wrong provided you keep holding on.







Another grandma.



And lastly, here's the official 4 months old picture. This was probably the only time today he wasn't crying, sleeping or workin' on a boob. This is also a remarkable picture in the respect that he's actually still in the swaddle blanket. Normally he's able to Houdini at least one arm out of the swadler in about a minute.

Daniel has decided that he doesn't need to do this silly napping thing anymore. We're unimpressed with this development. Wednesday he didn't nap much, but he had a long, rough day and was really well behaved, so we didn't think too much of it. Yesterday he napped for a total of about 30 minutes around 1pm, but that was all from 10:30am to 9:00pm. He slept pretty well overnight except that he was screaming in his sleep, which is kinda alarming. Today, he's missed his morning nap and he's fighting the afternoon one.

We went to the doctor this morning for his checkup and she didn't think it was much to worry about at this point. He's up to 6 lbs 8 3/4 oz and 20 inches long, which is great. He goes back in another 2 weeks for some vaccines and whatnot.

--Amy

Daniel rolled over for the first time yesterday! I put him down for tummy time and a minute later he rolled over onto his back. He's been able to kind of scoot himself forward and rotate on his tummy, but this is a new trick! :)

--Amy

Daniel had a follow-up eye exam today. He had a little bit of ROP in the hospital, which is a condition that can eventually lead to nasty things like detached retinas. His never got anywhere near that, but it's still a good idea to keep an eye on it until his eyes are fully developed, which should be pretty soon. The appointment was at 9:45am and we didn't see the doctor until 11:45am. I think that's a new record for waiting. Daniel was an angel, awake most of the time but calm and curious. It was freezing in the office, so I was worried about keeping him warm and had him bundled up as much as I could.

I didn't realize it until we saw him, but we had met this particular doctor before in the NICU. A couple months ago, he was there to do something on another baby and he chewed out one of the nurses. We didn't catch the whole thing or whether she had actually done anything wrong, but he was a real jerk about it. We also saw him a couple days before Daniel was discharged and he was kind of rude to Paul. Today was another example of his shining bedside manor. He snapped at the nurse in the hall, and he wasn't particularly nice to me either. I had to hold Daniel's arms down while the doctor did the exam, and he didn't like the way I was doing it or where I was standing, and he wasn't shy about saying so. Also, one of the leads on the apnea monitor came off, so it started shrieking shortly after he came in. He demanded to know what it was, and once I had reattached the lead and therefore silenced it, he snapped at me to turn it off. As if I was just the most inconsiderate person in the world for having a doctor-ordered machine to monitor my son's breathing. As if I don't know how annoying the alarm is and like I just love dragging it everywhere just to piss people off. Ugh.

The exam itself was the worst part, though. Babies aren't very cooperative at keeping their eyes open for this sort of thing, so they use these metal things, ala A Clockwork Orange. Then they use a metal wand to move the eyeball around. Our poor little boy was rather unhappy about this, but fortunately it didn't take very long and he calmed down quickly afterward. The results were good, no ROP but he may have to go for one more check since his eyes aren't completely developed yet.

Not related to Daniel, but just to add some fun to my day, we were late to our oil change appointment thanks to the delay at the doctor's office, I had to skip lunch to get there close to on time, and we found out that the timing belt in the Jetta needs to be replaced ASAP. It's not a cheap thing, but if it breaks, then the whole engine goes, which is far worse. Good times!

--Amy