Happy Due-Date!

If Dylan had been a more conventional child- with a bit more patience, today would have been his due date. It's really amazing to think of how far he has come in these last 10 weeks. To think that if things had gone according to schedule, I would only just now be changing my first diaper, burping him for the first time, feeding him for the first time- all these things that have already become like second nature would still be brand new to me. It kind of makes him coming so early feel like we got a head start on things with him. Granted, I would have rather had him cook for the full duration and avoided 48 days in the NICU, but now that he's home and doing so well, I think we can look at the bright side of his early arrival. Heck, it's not like we can do anything about it now, anyway.

And he does have a bit of a head start, I guess. He is already learning to support his head. He doesn't have full control over it yet, but when on his belly, he can pick it up, hold it steady or move it from side to side. He can hold it steady when he is upright as well, but not indefinitely. That will come as he gets older. His hand eye coordination is becoming somewhat noticeable. While he can't actually grasp things at will, he can definitely bring his hands to his mouth whenever he wants to, and he even seems to intentionally hold his pacifier in his mouth at times. He can track moving objects well, too. As long as it moves slowly, and stays within his range of focus, he will follow something by moving just his eyes and when it moves far enough, he'll turn his head to follow as well. He also reacts to sounds and voices by turning towards them to investigate. All of these things are things that a full term baby would be learning over the first one to three months. Dylan, who is just now at "day 0", already has these things down pat.

You only need to take one look at this before and after pic to see just how far he has come!


To celebrate his due date, Barbara and I finally finished decorating Dylan's nursery, It hasn't been a real priority, since he has been staying in our room, but since it was a special day, we thought we would add the finishing touches. I've created a slide show for those who are interested in seeing how the nursery looks.



Anyway, that's all for now... I'll check back in on Sunday.