Seven (or so) Habits for Highly Effective Babies

Sorry for the delay between posts.  The “no news is good news” maxim holds true.  Been a great week here in Santa Barbara–some beautiful summer weather (sunny but comfortable in the 70s) came and we’ve been loving it.  Max has been at track camp and Wilson at kayak camp, so they come home every day with tales of adventure.  Throw in a good afternoon swim or two, end up sleeping well.  Grandpa went back to Kansas to start his next round of chemo and Grandma stayed to keep an eye on Rudy and the rest of us.

Rudy’s pediatrician appointment this week affirmed what we’ve been suspecting.  He’s feeding well and he’s growing (14lbs, 6oz).  We’re seeing steady development as far as his motor skills, too.  He looks all around now–instead of just looking down and to the left as he did when he got home from the hospital.  He kicks his feet and grabs at things with his hands–usually he’s most successful at latching on to his O2 line or G-tube, so we need to keep things tucked in as best we can.  Most mornings we find him having rolled over on his side during the night.  All of this is relatively minor for most babies, but when we think of how many months we watched him lying prone in the hospital, we get a kick out of these new developments.  Of course none of these have the emotional impact of his smiles, which he does quite often for us, but we’ll never tire of seeing more.

We’re excited to see Rudy make progress now that we are tied into the team from the California Early Start program, who has been doing assessments over the past weeks and laid out a plan of action for us this week.  I’m not sure if Steven Covey wrote any material for infants, but Rudy now has a set of clearly defined goals, each with it’s own action plan of clearly articulated steps.  Rudy may be behind developmentally, but how many infants do you know with goal/outcome/action plan sheets?  Slackers, all of them.

These plans will primarily be carried out by two therapists who will come to our house twice weekly.  Major goals we’re hoping to achieve by his first birthday include sitting on his own, taking food from a spoon consistently and developing some basic communication skills.  We’ll likely have some regular exercises to reinforce the sessions with the therapists and also appreciate your prayers for these areas.  As simple as these milestones seem, we will celebrate them heartily when we get there.  As so much of our attention has been focused on Rudy’s viability, it’s encouraging to be working on some normal baby stuff.

I’ve seen the camera out quite a bit lately so I suspect Trish will have some pictures posted shortly.  Thanks for checking on us.