Catching Up

So much has happened in the last week that I hardly know where to begin. Aerin turned 5 months old on February 12th (chronological - from her birth date) and 2 months old on February 18th (adjusted - from her due date). She is almost 11 pounds!

We went to see Dr. Al-Mateen for her 2-month-old check-up last Wednesday. He was thrilled with her progress and gave her a clean bill of health. Even more remarkable is that she is developing much closer to her chronological age than her adjusted age. It would be great if she was developing like a normal 2-month-old, but she's much closer to a normal 5-month-old! She tracks objects with her eyes, recognizes her caregiver (me), can hold her head up steadily, can bear weight on her legs, turns toward loud or new sounds, and can push her chest up with her arms when she's on her tummy. I think she's going to be an early crawler - she gets into crawling position and moves her arms and legs, but she just can't put the movements together yet. She'll push off if you put your hand on the soles of her feet. She makes new noises every day and it's so fun to hear. I swear that she said "Ma" last week when she looked at me. She definitely said "bah," which means, "I am going to spit up all over you and the sofa."

We've taken Aerin out on a few more outings and they've all gone well. We took her to the mall for the first time last week. Andrew had to get a haircut and a new shirt and it was a gorgeous day out. Aerin hates being put in her car seat/baby carrier, but she calms down once we get going. I only had to pick her up twice and she settled right down. It really is like being with a movie star. People stop to stare at her, even people with their own babies. Everyone gushed about how beautiful she is, from the salespeople at Hecht's to everyone at the salon to everyone at the Nordstrom MAC counter. Every single stylist at the salon came over to fuss over Aerin. She really liked it there and looked right at everyone who had come to gawk at her. It was really fun to go there with her - I've been going there for years and went there when I was pregnant. The MAC counter was packed - there were about a dozen people shopping and having their makeup done. They all practically swarmed me. I was carrying Aerin because we didn't want to bring the stroller downstairs and I just planned to take a minute. No one could stop gushing over Aerin. I've been going there for years and the MAC artists all know me and they know all about Aerin. They were so happy to see her that they actually stopped what they were doing to get a closer look at her, which no one seemed to mind. I finally had to get us out of there because I was afraid people would start trying to touch Aerin or asking to hold her. Aerin took it all in stride and seemed to enjoy looking at all the people.

Aerin had bloodwork done and it all came back normal. In fact, she no longer needs extra iron! That's one less syringe we have to worry about. She's still on Zantac, Reglan, and multivitamins. We're hoping she'll outgrow the need for Zantac and Reglan, but she's going to need the multivitamins until she's at least one year adjusted.

Aerin is still sleeping through the night and I have to say that I feel a lot better. Aerin can go from zero to sixty in about 10 seconds. It's truly astounding. One second, she'll be asleep or just hanging out, the next second she's screaming. Sometimes she's content to hang out in her swing, sometimes she insists on being held. She's ambivalent about her sling, too. Sometimes she screams the second I put it on, sometimes she'll stay in it for a couple of hours. She's also had a couple of "Momma Moments," where she wouldn't let Andrew hold her and didn't stop crying until I took her. I'm really hoping they were isolated incidences.

Aerin's birth announcements arrived and I am working on getting them out. It'll take a while because Aerin is in one of her "how dare you put me down" kind of moods. In fact, she's calling me right now.