5/13/07: Day 302 (Sun.) Happy Mother's Day

Evan had a rare occasion today...both Mom and Dad were home on a Sunday. Now that the U of Arizona is done for the year, Mom doesn't have to make as many trips to Tucson on Sundays.

Tomorrow is the dreaded Synagis shot (the last one until the fall we hope).



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Chronological age: 43 weeks and 2 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 3 weeks and 6 days
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5/11/07: Day 300 (Fri.) 65 Days Until Evan's Birthday!

On Evan's little daily report card he got a gold star for eating 2 tablespoons of rice cereal at lunchtime! It's the little victories!!

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Chronological age: 43 weeks and 0 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 3 weeks and 4 days
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5/7/07: Day 296 (Mon.) Pictures are in

Back on April 12th, Evan had picture day at daycare. I had written about the debacle with the cute outfit I dressed him in (that he peed on). Here are the results of picture day...not terrible, but not his best smile. :-) You can tell he was not a happy guy on his tummy.



This a picture of all the babies (newborn through 12-months). In this pic, he had the original shirt on, but he's pants-less (por guy). He sitting on Ms. Olga's lap (she's the teacher who speaks Russian). I do love the look on his face (he looks thrilled). Amazing none of the babies were crying!



These vids are dark (we need to work on the lighting in the living room). As you can see, if Max had his way, Evan would be one worked-over, licked-up kid! Evan can almost sit up unassisted. I was just giving him a little support so he wouldn't tip over.





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Chronological age: 42 weeks and 3 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 3 weeks and 0 days
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5/5/07: Day 295 (Sat.) Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Dad decided to go watch the new Spiderman movie without us, so Evan and I did our own thing today. We took the Trailblazer to the car wash. Evan had a good time watching the cars go by and the guys dry off the cars. Afterwards we headed over to the mall since the movie would be over soon.

Sierra Vista now has a Best Buy electronics store right outside the mall. We decided to check it out and as expected, it was crazy in there. We cruised the parking lot over by the movie theater entrance to see where T had parked. He drove the Honda and it can be really hard to find in a parking lot since there seems to be a million other silver Hondas. Can you believe there was an open spot right beside him? What are those chances?

This was Evan's first time to the mall. He just loves to people-watch! Dad finally met up with us right about the time Evan was getting antsy for his early afternoon bottle.


Evan getting ready for breakfast.


Evan "eating" rice cereal.

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Chronological age: 42 weeks and 1 day
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 2 weeks and 5 days
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5/4/07: Day 294 (Fri.) Finally Settling In To Daycare

Dropping Evan off at daycare in the morning has become a much less stressful event. So, I am assuming it's a combo of him being comfortable with his teachers, maturing a bit and holding off on giving him his morning bottle until we get there. The teachers say he is such a pleasant baby, which is nice to hear.

Today when I picked him up, I stopped to talk to one of the infant teachers who is Russian (her name is Olga). She thinks it's neat that T and I both studied Russian. T can still "govoreet po rooskee", but it escapes me now. T now is the afternoon pick-up guy, so he gets to talk with Olga when she is there. It was funny since Evan was playing by himself in the Exersaucer and didn't see me at first. All of a sudden he heard my voice and he shot me the look of death...as if to say, "stop talking to her, you need to come get me right now"! He was all happy one moment and then started crying in an instant.


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Chronological age: 42 weeks and 0 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 2 weeks and 4 days
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5/3/07: Day 293 (Thurs.) Mmmm, rice cereal

The new part to the morning routine is to "expose" Evan to rice cereal. I use the word "expose" since he isn't too keen on eating it yet. He likes trying to steal the spoon from my hand or grabbing the end of the spoon and getting the cereal all over himself. Is there a non-messy way to feed a baby? Every morning I'll give him the opportunity to eat the cereal until he finally takes to it.

Evan had a great day today according to his daycare teachers. It's always a good thing to pick him up and the end of the day and he is still in the same outfit I dressed him in that morning!

Evan's musical sleeping selection for tonight: The Steve Miller Band; Fly Like an Eagle. Whenever I hear a 70's band like Steve Miller, it reminds me of my older sisters since they listened to that group. I was lucky to have sisters who had good taste in music back then!

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Chronological age: 41 weeks and 6 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 2 weeks and 3 days
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5/2/07: Day 292 (Wed.) Music Man

Evan took very well to his nebulizer treatment at daycare. They gave him his treatment around 2:30pm. I gave him a treatment before taking him to daycare and he was not happy with me. I wish I could have snapped a picture of the mean look he had on his face when I roused him from his sleep to get him ready to go.

To minimize the risk of Evan puking on me when I drop him off at daycare, I wait until after I've already gotten ready for work to wake him up. He's been sleeping in very well. I change him out, put him in the car seat and go. I make up a 3oz. bottle to give him after I get him to daycare. So far, the technique has been working. Now that I have to do the nebulizer treatment, it delays his morning bottle. It didn't seem to bother him too much this morning. The bottle seems to be the perfect distractor for him in daycare first thing in the morning; especially if the babies are crying a lot.

We're trying to expose Evan to all types of music (hoping he takes after his mom and has musical talent). Every night we put him to sleep with a different music CD. We'll reserve groups like White Zombie and the Lords of Acid until he gets a little bit older. Tonight, his CD selection is Creedence Clearwater Revival, Chronicles Volume 2. Last night was the Best of The Temptations; so we are expanding his repertoire.

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Chronological age: 41 weeks and 5 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 2 weeks and 2 days
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5/1/07: Day 291 (Tues.) 9-Month Check Up

Evan had his 9-Month Well Baby Checkup today. Since Dr. Ettinger is on sabbatical, a new younger doctor, Dr. Smith gave Evan the exam. Evan still is an ounce shy of 14 pounds, but he is getting longer (25.5 inches). When I inputted all his stats, he has fallen into the -2 standard deviation (you can see on the chart). Nothing huge to worry about, but he is small even for his adjusted age.

Evan still has that lingering cough with nasal congestion. Dr. Smith thinks it will take a while for him to kick it since he's been seeing perfectly healthy kids have it for 8-10 weeks. So the nasal sucking will continue (Evan just loves it)!;-)

Dr. Smith also put Evan back on the Albuterol treatments every four hours for the next 10 days. He thinks if we can get his airways wide open, it will help him expel a lot of that crap in his chest. There was definitely no pneumonia in his lungs, so that is a relief. He is having us stop the 3 times a day Dimetapp/Albuterol syrup that Dr. E had prescribed. Dr. Smith says research has come out showing that it really isn't effective. Which I can see in Evan's case since he has been taking that since the end of March and his cough and congestion hasn't improved.

We also got the green light to start him on rice cereal/solids. Yea! A step closer to getting him caught up with his peers!

Happy Anniversary to Jen's parents!!

** Stat Check:
Weight 13 pounds 15 ounces
Length 25.5 inches
Head circumference 42cm


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Chronological age: 41 weeks and 4 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 2 weeks and 1 day
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4/27/07: Day 287 (Fri.) We Have Teeth (sort of)!

Evan's two bottom teeth are cutting through his gums! Another milestone! We thought just one was coming in since we could feel it a few days ago...but both bottom teeth are peeking through. Evan was running a slight fever today, probably due to teething.
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Chronological age: 41 weeks and 0 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 1 weeks and 4 days
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4/24/07: Day 284 (Tues.) O.k...who does he look like?

The debate still rages on...who does Evan look more like? Here are pics all around the same age. You can vote using the comments. :-)

There's no argument from me that he has his dad's feet (you can't tell since Evan has shoes on in this pic).


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Chronological age: 40 weeks and 4 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 1 weeks and 1 days
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4/23/07: Day 283 (Mon.) Jumping for Joy!

Can a baby give himself "shaken baby syndrome"? Evan is a crazy-jumper..and this one was mild:


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Chronological age: 40 weeks and 3 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 1 weeks and 0 days
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4/21/07: Day 281 (Sat.) Walk America!

The Sierra Vista Walk America for the March of Dimes was held this morning at Veteran's Park. We walked up from home and met Stacy who was walking for Joey's granddaughter, Mya. Luckily, Evan's fever went away, so he was able to participate along with Sadie. Sadie had to do her typical, look-at-me yelp for the first part of the walk. She makes this yelp-bark-wail-thing that sounds like we're beating her...it's probably a dominance thing, anyway...very embarrassing!

The weather was sooo bad for a April morning in Arizona! There were rain clouds over towards post, so we kept our fingers crossed it would stay to the west of us. It was a crazy-wind day, so the temps were low...probably in the 50's with the wind...upper 40's (nippy)! T decided to wear shorts, so he froze during the walk on top of still having the nose/throat funk that he's had the past few days...what a trooper!

When we finished the walk, of course the sun decided to come out as you can see from the pics below. I won one of the gift baskets (sweet)...a basket full of movie-themed stuff (popcorn, candy, and 3 movies).


Dad and Sadie (Sadie was finally worn out a bit)


Mom and Evan (for those of you who haven't seen me in a while, yes I have braces, sexy I know for a 37-year old). I made Evan's shirt for him.


Evan knew better and hibernated in his stroller, you can see his eyes were smiling.

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Chronological age: 40 weeks and 1 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 0 weeks and 4 days
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4/20/07: Day 280 (Fri.) Big Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who sponsored Evan in Sierra Vista's Walk America event that will take place tomorrow. Over $400 was raised! We'll be walking with friends who are walking for Mya (Joey P's granddaughter who was born at 24 weeks in Phoenix). She is looking great! Joey and Deb will be walking with Justine up in Phoenix, so you can see pics from that event on Joey's blog (listed on the right side of our blog).

Evan came down with a fever today, so fingers crossed he will be o.k. for the walk tomorrow!

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Chronological age: 40 weeks and 0 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 0 weeks and 3 days
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Making Movies

I'm experimenting with a site I ran across on one of the preemie discussion boards (www.onetruemedia.com). Click here for Evan's first video montage:

4/17/07: Day 277 (Tues.) Chowing Down at Vinny's

Two soccer buds of mine were down visting today. They recently moved to Massachusetts to take teaching jobs. They were on spring break and came down to visit just as the weather has been miserable in New England. All the soccer chicks met at our regular place, Vinny's NY Pizza. Evan's daycare is right around the corner, so I stopped in after picking him up. It was the first time Kim and Sue had seen him. Evan had fun being passed around to everyone. Sunny even rocked him to sleep for a bit. He settled in on Dolores, sleeping against her shirt that had a waffle pattern on it. The poor kid had a waffle pattern all over his face when he woke up. :-)

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Chronological age: 39 weeks and 4 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 7 months, 0 weeks and 0 days
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4/16/07: Day 276 (Mon.) Checking In With Dr. E

Since Evan still had that yucky sounding chest congestion, we took him to see Dr. Ettinger as a precaution to make sure it wasn't pnuemonia. Dr E had a medical student helping out in the office and we saw him first. Dr. E cam in later and reassured us that he was fine. We have to keep suctioning his nose out with saline drops and that bulb-sucking-thing. Evan hates when we do it, but I think he is happy afterwards since he can breathe a bit better. We don't get a whole lot of stuff out of his nose, but it must be enough. Dr. E is also not concerned with Evan's slow weight gain, so we'l keep doing what we've been doing. We're still continuing to give him the Dimetapp with Albuterol 3 times a day. Dr. E hopes that will keep asthma from developing. He also thinks that last Synagis shot will be it for this season. It depends on his weight if he will be eligible to get the Synagis shots this fall.

We found out Dr. E is taking a sabbatical to study marine biology down in Mexico. He has another doctor coming in (who used to practice in Gainesville) to cover him while he's gone. He said he isn't retiring...but will continue to work 3 or so days a week and golf the other days when he gets back.

**Weight check: 13 lbs. 15 oz.**
**Height: 24 inches**

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Chronological age: 39 weeks and 3 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 6 months, 4 weeks and 3 days
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4/15/07: Day 275 (Sun.) Race For the Cure

Evan completed his first 5K today! We participated in the Race For the Cure up in Tucson. Every year the Thetas have a team...about 14 of the girls from the UofA chapter walked with us. Evan was an absolute doll the whole day. He even sat through a recruitment workshop at the Theta house with no complaints.
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Chronological age: 39 weeks and 2 days
Adjusted/developmental age: 6 months, 4 weeks and 2 days
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4/14/07: Day 274 (Sat.) 9 Months Old!

Guess who is 9 months old today? Can you believe how fast time is flying?
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Chronological age: 39 weeks and 1 day (9 Months)
Adjusted/developmental age: 6 months, 4 weeks and 1 day
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