April started out ok as far as Gavin went, because due to the Miralax he was taking, he started drinking amazingly well. Plus, both he and I were mostly over our nasty colds. THEN, his daddy ended up in the hospital with a burst appendix. Gavin did visit Terry in the hospital a couple of times, but then Terry said it was making him too tired and taking too much out of him to have Gavin visit, SO Gavin stayed home. Which was better for both of them. Terry got more rest, and we didn't have to plan our day and Gavin eating around when we were taking him to the hospital. (It's rough to feed a bottle-fed kid in the hospital with really no place to go sit and feed him!)
Gavin's eating/drinking dropped off. Of course, that could be because after Terry went in the hospital, it was ME making the bottles up for Gavin, and I wasn't giving him extra doses of Miralax that Terry inadvertently had been doing! (We all misunderstood the doctor's directions on dosing until I called to clarify the dose. Turns out, we had been giving Gavin 3-4 times his prescribed daily dose! Hey- it's not our fault that the doctor wrote "1 tsp in 4 oz fluid", and didn't specify that it was only ONCE PER DAY! Barbara, Terry and I ALL thought that it meant in every bottle we gave him. No wonder the kid was drinking so well. He was COMPLETELY cleaned out!)
Anyway, it wasn't easy with Terry being in the hospital, but Gavin did get to spend more time with his Grandma P. She watched him for several hours at a time while I would go to the hospital alone. (Yes, I drove myself, with my broken foot. Didn't have much choice if I wanted to see my husband! The doctor had said I could start putting weight on it a bit at a time, and work my way up to 50% of my weight, so I figured driving must be acceptable too. After checking with the doctor afterwards, he said that yes, that was fine.)
So it has been a lot of work to get Gavin to go back to drinking and eating well. It hasn't really happened yet, but we're trying.
We found a tick on him one morning about a week ago, and brought him and the tick to the doctor to be checked out. The doctor assured us that it looked like a wood tick, which doesn't carry diseases. So I hope she's right. We think the tick got on him from his LONG walk with Grandma P the day before. She had the stroller so she could push Gavin part of the way, and they ended up down by the river, 1 1/2 miles from here. They were gone over 3 hours, and had a good time exploring the river area.
When we were at the doctors appointment, they weighed him and it turned out he had gained about 12 ounces in the last month! YAY! Of course, most of that was in that first week of taking Miralax, and his weight gain has slowed down since then, but still, that's a great amount for him!
On the 27th, we brought Gavin for his 2-year adjusted appointment with the NICU follow-up clinic. I'll try to remember to post actual numbers later, but the long and the short of it is, that he is pretty much caught up with his age in most areas. He is at least between his adjusted and his actual age in everything, EXCEPT expressive language. However, just about a week before the appointment, Gavin started saying a flurry of words, starting with, the alphabet! He absolutely loves saying the letters, and coupled with the few sign language signs we have taught him, he decided he was really interested in talking. Finally. He finally figured out what this talking thing is all about, and that it can get him what he wants. Like when he'll sign and say "Help" (does them together), we help him. Voila! Like magic, he figured out that it was a good thing if he could make his needs known, and now he's picking up new words every day! So even though his expressive language ability only scored as high as a 17 month old kid, he'll be catching up soon I think. Speaking of the alphabet, there are only a few of the letters he can't seem to say yet. He can recognize all but one or two (point to them when asked), and can say all but 8 or so of them. Pretty good considering he just started saying them a week or two ago. No, he doesn't say them in order yet, but he's working on it. And he gets "3" confused with "E", and such, but I'm sure that's normal and will get clear on this eventually. He likes learning the numbers too, and really seems to be happy to tell us when he sees the number "8." Not sure why he focused on that one as being able to tell us first, but he likes it.
Ok, that's a really long post so far. So, I'm done, except to say, that last night, Terry put together Gavin's toddler bed. He did sleep in it for a while (he fell asleep being held on the couch, and then was transferred to the bed), and then climbed out of bed and came in with us, same as he's been doing most nights for the last month. (Think I had forgotten to post that also, that he now regularly climbs out of his crib at night. You can tell that he's pretty impressed that he can do it by himself! Now, with the toddler bed, it's easier, so I don't know if he'll like doing it as well, but it definitely will be safer than climbing over that high rail like he did!)
That's it for now.
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