Mr. Giggles

Much to our joy tonight, Dane started laughing his first belly laughs. We were both almost crying, it was so much fun to watch him laughing like that. He's been a very good little boy this weekend, as Mark had the Chicago triathlon on Sunday morning. Saturday morning, we all went downtown for the first time with Dane. Mark carried him facing forward in the Bjorn, through check-in and numbering, etc. He did great, just staring at the many people and activity going on around us. We got through check-in in about a half-hour, which was pretty speedy and then headed home. Dane was a bit tired by this point and cried on and off on the way home, but it was great to know that we're getting close to being able to actually go downtown with him for an afternoon! Mark's folks came down to watch him as we had to get up at 4 this morning to head to the race. Dane loved learning more about his hands and feet from Grandma and riding "the Knee" of Grandpa Mike, while giggling like a maniac. It's so fun for us to see how much our parents and Dane enjoy each other! After Anderson's headed home, Dane took a couple naps, allowing us to get some laundry done and get ready for the week ahead. He's in a very funny mood tonight and we knew that the following videos would be grandparent, great-grandparent, and aunt/uncle pleasers. Hope you get a laugh out of them as well!

What a difference 9 months makes!

Last night the Meisenheimers came over for dinner. It was great to catch up and see them and have them bring dinner. It was also fun to see their little daughter, Avery, who is about 9 months older than Dane. She is still not talking much, but she is so expressive and was walking (albeit slightly unsteadily) around our apartment. It really made us excited for Dane to start doing more stuff: to crawl, to walk, to start talking, to play with toys, to enjoy looking at and then reading books, to eat real food. Avery was doing all of these things and its hard to believe that Dane will be doing those things within the next 9 months or so. Crazy. At the same time we are very excited for all of those things, we also realize that we have a lot to do before then... we all had to occassionally reign in Avery to not climb the entertainment center or to not play with the photos on the counters... we'll need to do some serious Dane-proofing before he gets very mobile.

The world isn't flat but...

The world isn't flat, but Dane's head might be.... We had Dane's visit yesterday with the "developmental clinic" at CDH. This involved speaking with the neonatologist and PT people. I was at work so I wasn't able to go, and I was unimpressed with the people at the clinic. We experienced some of this similar problem when Dane was originally born. They talked with us at that time about "worst case scenarios" and made us feel totally overwhelmed, only to have everything turn out fine 24 hours later (example: the little bleed in Dane's brain, the spots in his retinas, etc). The people at the clinic yesterday kept saying how Dane is behind on meeting his milestones (like lifting his head during tummy time) because he is so heavy now. (Excuse me, but isn't the goal to have him gain weight? This is the so-called "catch-up" preemie weight gain...) They also made a big deal out of the somewhat flat spot on the back of Dane's head, telling Larissa that it might not go back to round or that he might need to wear one of those head re-shaping helmets or go to physical therapy. Seriously? It's not like his head is super flat. And I'm sure as soon as he gets some head control and doesn't spend all day on his back, everything will round out. We are trying to do his tummy time, but he still absolutely hates it.

Two suggestions from the clinic visit that we are going to use:
1) We switched the side of Dane's crib that we put his head. He has been wanting to look out into the room, so he's always been turning his head to the left. Putting his head at the other end of the crib will force him to look to his right in order to look at the bedroom. We also swung the big lantern lamp that has been over his crib to now be out towards the middle of the room. We hang toys for him to look at off of the lamp, again giving him things to look at off to his right to help him turn to that direction more often.
2) We are trying to do even more tummy time (even though Dane hates it) and to hold him / keep pressure off of the back of his head more often. This is simply because the semi-flat spot is on the back of his head, so less time with pressure to the back of his head should also help to allow it to round out.

PS - Happy 5 months old today, Dane!

Mr. Chatterbox

Dane's latest development, really just coming out more in the last few days has been lots more vocalization. It's not really talking yet, but he's making a lot more noises besides just crying and giggling. It's fun to hear him starting to communicate with us, even if the things he has to "say" aren't even multiple syllables most of the time.

Dane goes swimming

We have brought Dane to the 2 Wheaton public pools several times throughout the past several months but he always spent the entire time sleeping in his car seat while we swam (one at a time, of course, so we could keep an eye on Dane) and tanning / reading. But today, for the first time, Dane joined us in the pool, this time at the indoor pool at our gym. We really weren't sure how he would feel about the pool, but hoped he would enjoy it because he really has been happy playing in his whale tub for bathtime. Anyway, Dane was very happy to go to the pool. It was a bit of sensory overload for him because there was so much to look at, so many people around. We didn't yet put his head underwater but we did let some water go over his face and watched as he held his breath. Drumroll...we might just have a future swimmer on our hands (Insert here Larissa reminding me that Dane can do whatever sports he wants and that football isn't a sissie sport)....

And the little one says... Roll Over

Dane is becoming more and more aware of the world around him. It is really fun to see him looking at things in the room intently, to follow things with his eyes as we walk him around the room. He really likes things that are round (like lamps, ceiling fans, and my road bike tires), very colorful (bright t-shirts, my road bike, or kids books), or have a lot of contrast (like our dark furniture). One new "skill" Dane has been picking up over the last several days is rolling over. He is by no means a professional at this yet and it seems to take him a lot of time and energy to roll over, but he is successful. Check out the video.

Dane's first babysitter

We made our first plans to leave Dane with someone other than his grandparents last week. We had bought tickets to a concert in Tinley Park (Blink 182, FOB, and Panic! at the Disco) that we were very excited to use. We ended up finding a sitter on the Wheaton College babysitter list, a current student who lived in the area with her parents. I went through what she'd need to know a million times, writing and re-writing instructions about feeding times, napping preferences, bedtime routine and more. Mark finally said I would scare her off if I wrote more than a page, so I decided it was time to let go of the worry and know that we could handle however it turned out. Our sitter showed up right on time and seemed like a very sweet, knowledgeable girl. I kept saying, "I haven't done this before" to justify my seemingly over-detailed direction. She was very patient and kept telling us to enjoy ourselves. We finally got everything together and walked out the door. The concert was so much fun - Mark and I found ourselves laughing harder than we have in months. We stopped at Sonic for a date-dinner before the concert and then continued on to our lawn seats at the show. It was a beautiful night and we had a great view. It was so much fun to feel free again together, and we truly enjoyed the date. We came home to a sleeping Dane, and glowing reports about how easy he'd been, and while the house was a disaster and there apparently had been a catastrophic spit-up in his clothes and the crib, all was well. Phew. First one down, hopefully, a few more to go:)