The Farmer's Market

(I love my boy!!!!!!!!)

(Colby drumming away with mommy's help.)


(Here is Paul, Blaik and their family. They had this Chariot thing which you can see in the left of the picture. It was like the SUV of strollers. The thing did everything but change the babies diaper!)

We went to an awesome farmer's market today in Coventry. Tracey had gone before, but I'd never been. Our friends Paul, Blaik and their three kids met us there.

There were live animals there for Colby to see. A guy was doing a drum circle and Colby got to bang on some drums. They had a small fife and drum (I think that's what you call it) that he got to see. Paul and Blaik have two adorable girls who are great with Colby. Each time they've seen him they're rather interested with his shunt. I can't imagine what they must be thinking.

It's great to be able to bring Colby out without him squinting all the time and doing his "eye thing". Plus at least for now, we don't have to worry too much about him getting a cold. Another month or two and we'll need to be more cautious about where we bring him. We want to ask the doctor, probably the pulmonologist, when it will be OK for him to get his first cold. Some things are out of our control, but things like that which could really set him back, I'd rather be cautious about.

Just some pics

(I gave Colby a bath the other day in the sink. He seemed to really enjoy it. We had some pans in the other side of the sink that he was pretty interested in. His hair is still pretty short and thin. But the spot where he had his shunt placed has always had darker, longer hair. So that's the only area I could spike while I was shampooing his hair.)

(Colby went to his first birthday party the other weekend. Thank you for having us at your birthday party Brennon! We had a great time!)

(And here are some pictures from the other night when Colby first used his fingers to put some smaller treats into his mouth. I can imagine Colby saying " Come here you little....treat. I know I can do this!")
("Gotcha! Now....if I can just get you to my mouth...almost........ow yeah!!!")

(Ta-daaahhhhhhh!!!!! "I'm gettin to be a big boy. I can now put little, itty bitty treats into my mouth. I rock....'cause I'm the Colbster!")

Tiny Fingers

Colby had another accomplishment last night. His fine motor skills are a bit delayed. So he's been grabbing at things, but it's not refined at all. He'll grab something, pull it to his mouth, or pass it from hand to hand. But for the most part, it's been larger items....toys, bags, balls, etc. We've been trying to get him to pick up his little treats off his tray and put them in his mouth. They're about the size of a Cheerio. At first he didn't really seem to realize they were there. He's swipe his hand across the tray, pushing them off the side and onto the floor. Then he realized they were there and would open and close his hand on them, over and over. Next came grabbing then, bringing his hand out to his sides...and dropping then. But never could be help him draw the correlation between the food being in his hand and getting it into his mouth. He knew that if we picked them up, he would bring his head forward, open his mouth and try to suck the treat up. He also knew that he could put a biscuit or other larger food items into his mouth and had no trouble what so ever doing that.
Anyway, so we've been trying to show him that once he has one in his hand, that he can bring it to his mouth. He would pull his arm away and fuss out of frustration. But then last night, he was in his bumbo and I put the tray on it, poured out some treats. Things started as usual...treats being pushed off the side, down in front of him and off the front. So I took his and gently brought it to his mouth. I figured after I let go, he's fuss, pull his hand out to the side and that's it. But instead, I let go and he looked down at his tray, eyed a treat and went right after it. And he did this over and over. His only trouble now is the fine dexterity of picking it up with is forefinger so he can easily get it into his mouth. But he's got it. It's was just so neat to see like a light bulb going off.

So that's the latest with the Colbster.

More milestones!

We noticed just the other day that Colby is getting his first tooth!! We've been wondering when he would start teething. Well, now we know. He's doing fine with it. He doesn't take his binky like he used to, but that's understandable. You can't really see the tooth yet, just feel it.
As you can see from the video, Colby is really enjoying his jumper. Just the other day, he started literally jumping in it. It seems like he gets a kick out of jumping.
He's also doing much better with his tummy time.
Little by little, our boy is making progress !!

Update on Colby's "eye thing"

As you know, Colby developed an "eye thing" a couple months back. He would squint his eyes, look just about straight down and sometimes turn his head a little to the side. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to these spells. But they gradually increased in frequency to the point where some days it seemed like we was spending more of is waking hours with his eyes squinted and not.

We brought him to the ER while in Maine, then to his neurosurgeon back home and both suggested that it may be seizure activity. So we had an EEG done, met with a neurologist and were told that although the EEG was abnormal, there didn't seem to be any seizure activity.

So....it was suggested we go see an eye specialist and maybe it was some kind of eye spasm. The appointment was made.

Then, even quicker than these episodes began, they've disappeared with seemingly no lasting effects. We're still going to follow up with the eye doctor on other vision questions and mild cross eyed-ness. We will ask them about these spells but I'm sure when we bring him their report will be "Well, being that he's not doing the "eye thing" now, all we can tell you is that...well...he's not doing it." Hopefully they will have seen similar cases and can offer some insight.

Either way, our little boy's "eye thing" is, at least for now, a thing of the past.

A Visitor from Chile

(Francisco, Colby & I)

I think in one of my postings I explained how I lived in South America for a year. In Chile to be more exact. I was a Rotary Club Youth Exchange Student and went down there the year after I graduated from high school here in the US. I lived with a wonderful Chilean family who took me in as one of their owns sons. They had three sons, Rodrigo, Francisco and Felipe. Francisco was up in the US doing his year abroad when I was down there, so we never met. Francisco now works for a Chilean Wine maker and was up traveling around the Northeast on business so we got in touch and he came over the house for a couple days. Great to meet him and get updates on my Chilean family. I hope one day to go back to Chile to visit everyone. It's been 15 years now so I'm sure a lot has changed. I'd love to teach Colby some Spanish too when the time comes.

("Ow no daddy, I hope you're not mad at the mess I made.)(No way Colby. How can I get mad at this cutie!!!)

As for Colby.....we have an occupational therapist who comes every other week (the weeks birth to 3 doesn't come). This was only her second visit with Colby and she was pretty pleased with his development thus far. We're still trying to work on his arm strength to help him push himself up when he's on his belly. Then to crawl when he's ready. It's a slow process. He really just doesn't get it yet that he needs to put his arms down. When he falls over or goes onto his stomach, his reaction is to pull his arms upward. So that's the latest thing we're working on with him.

She asked if he seems hypersensitive with his hands. Some babies who spend a lot of time in the NICU get a fear of touching things or being touches as they were poked and prodded so much that they think anything that touches them will probably hurt. Luckily he doesn't seem to show any signs of that. I do remember when he was in the NICU that Tracey and I would regularly have our hands in the incubator simply lying our hand on him, touching his hands and feet or gently rubbing him. I wonder if in some way this helped a bit.

Anyway, she asked if he was adverse to touching wet things. We didn't think he was but weren't too sure. So the other day I smashed up a banana and put it on his tray. He's NOT adverse to touching wet stuff !!!!! He seemed to enjoy smashing it around and spreading it just about anywhere he could. All was well until he started putting his hand up in the air and slamming it down on his tray, thus spreading banana everywhere.

Another change is his formula. We've wanted to see when we could introduce a new formula. Ever since he came home from the NICU he's been on a special, predigested formula called Pregestimil. It's pretty expensive and now that he's eating more, it's getting pretty tough. We can no start to introduce a new kind of formula. It' still expensive, but it's about $5 less a can. We'll take any savings we can! We just started yesterday and at least thus far, he seems to be tolerating it well.

Video of Colby talking

(Colby is rolling onto his side a lot more lately. He still doesn't seem to enjoy belly time too much, but he's getting better.)
(I love this boy!!!)

(And here's a video of the Colbster chatting away. Sometimes he'll do ma ma ma, or da da da. Lately he just started na na na. Or other times he'll just do this odd scream/screech thing. Either way he melts my heart when I hear him. )

Colby's B-day Party

(Colby just woke up from a nap right before we cut his cake. He wasn't too sure what to make of it all.)

(Chris, Liz and Pete...well....attempting the board walk game. Hey...you made it a little past the start line! LOL)
(The girls had their stuff together. Tate, Gabrielle and Alexis cruised along making it look easy.)
(Thank you Amie for showing me the Youtube of this game. With some work we created it as best we could. Here's Patti going out for her marshmallow.)
(Leo really seemed to get a kick out of the game.)(Of all the games, the egg toss seemed to be the biggest hit)(Then came the medals)(Thanks again Eric for coming to play! It sounded great!)
(Then back home at the end of the day. Colby loves his gifts and really seemed to enjoy chewing on the cards and envelopes!)

First and foremost, THANK YOU to everyone who come to Colby's Birthday Party. It was a beautiful day, Colby was in a good mood and it seemed like people enjoyed themselves. That was the whole point of the day. Yes, it was Colby's B-day, but there have been so many people who have supported us that we wanted it to be a fun day for everyone and I hope it worked out that way.

Colby stayed awake almost the entire time, being passed along from one person to another to say their hellos. He fell asleep right before we were going to cut his cake, so we had to do a change in plans. When we did cut his cake he had just woken up so he was a bit spacey. Then last night he didn't want to go to sleep. He'd rather play with all his fun new stuff.

People started coming in around 12:30. The food started around 1:30. I had put together a bunch of games to get people involved and give them something to do, but it was hard recruiting teams. In the end we did the marshmallow game, carrot race, egg toss and boardwalk. Thank you to those who participated. If anyone has pictures of the carrot race, please e-mail them to me as I couldn't find my camera in time and would love to post a couple pictures of that.

Then we had medals to hand out to the winners. Washers from Home Depot put on ribbons. Then I put peppermint patties on ribbons for the kids. Eric Heath from the band Columbia Fields came and played for a bit. He's the awesome musician who's music is on the blog. People hung out under the pavilion, went to the beach and over to the playscape....it just worked out so well.

It was wonderful to spend the day with so many friends and family. It's great stimulation for Colby and I'm glad so many of you got to see him and spend time with him. Thank all of you again for making it such a great time!