'Tis the Season

Welcome back folks, to the newest installment of Dylan's Den.

Everything is going very well. His latest doctor's visit saw him weighing in at 19.8 lbs and measuring 27 inches long. His head growth continues to be normal and his umbilical hernia is completely closed with just a vestigial piece of skin remaining.

His development continues to amaze, amuse and impress Barbara and I both. He is now very vocal, laughing and giggling, shouting for attention, babbling to anyone and anything that attracts his attention. He has also discovered how to make a raspberry. He uses them to punctuate pretty much everything he "says". He is also very adept at manipulating his toys- passing them from hand to and, from mouth to hand or, like in the case of his mirror, just holding it outstretched in both hands so that he can coo at it and stare at it for long periods of time.

Dylan is also continuing to explore the concept of solid foods. We've experimented with a few new flavors and applesauce seems to be his favorite. He is now opening his mouth to welcome the applesauce- not pushing out his tongue to block it. We haven't really pushed the matter with him, but he is making what we think is good progress.

Speaking of progress, Dylan is also getting to spend more and more time on his belly, which is helping him develop the muscles he will need to use to crawl. He already holds his head up so that he can look around while on his belly, and works his arms and legs at times too, but not in enough coordination to actually get anywhere. All in due time, I guess. Of course, once he does start moving around the house it will make things very interesting. I can see us now, chasing after him as he chases after he cats and dogs. What fun we will have :)

A few folks have asked what Dylan needs for Christmas. Well, Barbara and I and Dylan's grandparents seem to have gone a bit overboard. He should have enough toys to last him through until at least Christmas '09. So I guess the best thing we could say to answer that question would be gift cards to Toys 'R Us or Babies 'R Us. He will be needing a new car seat set soon, as he is rapidly outgrowing his current one. Also, there is the question of sizes. Dylan is currently wearing 3-6 month and 6 month outfits. I'd say the best bet would be 9 months size or larger.

Anyway, that's about all there is to update about for now. If anything new comes up, I'll be sure to post about it here.

I know, I know... it's been a while since my last post. But that's because everything has been such smooth sailing that I didn't really think it would be all that interesting to read about.

Still, today was Dylan's first Thanksgiving, and that only comes along once. Of course, he had his own special outfit to help celebrate:


Dylan tried some mashed potatoes and some gravy. Neither was exactly a huge success, but then again, we've only just begun experimenting with food other than his bottles. He has had a few mouthfuls of Gerber carrots, but even that didn't go over too well. That's okay though- it's still kind of early, given his adjusted age and all. He'll get it when he's ready for it. Until then, we'll just have fun watching him smear jar food all over his face.

It's all part of the learning curve for him. And the learning curve is something that came up in a conversation with his physical therapist a couple of weeks ago. After some discussion and after seeing just how well he is handling his toys and himself, his therapist and Barbara and I all agreed that it wouldn't be productive to continue seeing her on a weekly basis, especially since there isn't anything that the therapist is doing with him that Barbara and I aren't already doing at home. And since we are able to do things on Dylan's timetable, when he is ready as opposed to her schedule, it is typically more effective.

In the couple of weeks since we started the PT, Dylan has learned to control his head pretty much all of the time. He still get's lazy occasionally, but even then he doesn't completely lose control of his head- he just let's it hang a bit. He still has a bit of trouble lifting it from a flat position when he is laying on his back, but we work at that daily and he get's closer and closer to doing that himself every day. He also is grabbing with both hands, shaking rattles, manipulating toys to face the direction he wants them to (typically in the direction of his mouth) and can even hold some of his heavier toys over his chest like a bench-press, without our help. It's pretty impressive to see the development as it happens over just the course of a few short weeks. He's even starting to hold himself upright when in a sitting position. It will still be a while before he can pull himself up to that sitting position on his own, but if we put him there, he can maintain it without help for 30 seconds to a minute sometimes, before he wobbles a bit too much and topples over. We're scheduled for a follow up evaluation to make sure the home therapy is progressing well, sometime in January. That will give the therapist an opportunity to get a look at Dylan's progress and give us any pointers we may need or help us move things along in another direction if necessary. So far, so good...

Dylan also has a doctor visit Dec 4 for his 6 month battery of shots and his Synagis vaccine. Syangis is a vaccine againt a common virus affecting preemies and other high-risk babies. It can be pretty nasty, so we make sure he is protected against it. You can learn more about RSV here: http://pediatrics.about.com/od/rsv/a/1006_synagis.htm

After that, it's all about Dylan's first Christmas. We're already preparing with a couple of special Christmas outfits for the little guy, as well as plenty of holiday cheer. More on that soon, as details (and pictures!) become available.

Until then, look for updates to the blog on something more like a monthly basis, at least unless something especially noteworthy happens. With that, here's one more picture from today...

Happy Halloween!

Halloween has come and gone, and Dylan seemed to enjoy it. I know Barbara and I certainly enjoyed dressing Dylan in his costumes and taking lots of pictures while we showed him off to anyone nearby.

Although the Giraffe costume won in the poll, by the time we went to dress Dylan in it, he had outgrown it. So, we went with the runner up costume, the clown. I must say, Dylan makes quite the cute clown. I was quite impressed with how well he endured being dressed in his costume, visitng people all over town.

First, we stopped with his Nana at her job to show him of there. Everyone made an appropriate fuss over just how cute he is, especially when he's wearing a getup like that.

Then we took him to Grandma and Grandpa Levine's house where they had ample opportunity to fawn over him. And for good measure, we took him to visit a few other friends nearby.

We took plenty of pictures of the clown costume and even got a few of him in some other Halloween-y outfits. Enjoy the pictures...