10 Months Old!

Britton turned 10 months old yesterday! Boy does time fly ... the days go by faster ... and he gets bigger and more grown up seemingly overnight. Britton is now tipping the scales at 18 pounds which means he has now tripled his birth weight. Babies typically triple their weight at 1 year, so our little guy, though still small on the growth charts, is growing at a little bit of a faster clip than his peers. I'm not sure if I posted his stats from his 9-month appointment but he was 25th% for height and 5th% for weight then. He is always charted by his doctor from his birth age and not his corrected age of one month less, so I think he would be a lot more average if not for this.

Developmentally, Britton is plugging along. His fine motor skills are excellent, and his gross motor skills are adequate. He is a bit slow to crawl, but he sure is trying hard to do so! He usually either crawls backwards, spins in circles on the floor, or swims in the air, but no forward progress yet. We have switched our primary therapist to a physical therapist (instead of an occupational therapist) and she has been so great at showing us what we can do to get him crawling. Because he is such a good pivoter (turning in circles on the floor), she said he has the skills to start crawling any day, but that it could also be a month from now depending on how motivated he is, and when he puts it all together. We learned something very interesting from her ... that premature babies usually have overdeveloped extensor (back) muscles, but weaker flexion (front torso) muscles, so it is easier for them to overdevelop their straight plane movements (like Britton has) and it is harder to get them to turn and twist and get comfortable with shifting their body weight over their arms/hands, which is important in the crawling movement. At least that was my understanding of it all. The therapists always point out that it is important for us to keep in mind that developmentally, Britton is just now a 9 month-old. We feel very comfortable with where Britton is and are not concerned that he is not crawling yet. I was talking with a mom of a micropreemie recently and admired her easygoing approach and point of view that babies just do things in their own time. It is so true that the range of normal is wide on the developmental charts, and while some babies crawl at 6 months, others crawl much, much later, with a growing percentage of babies never crawling at all. We feel sure that Britton will not be in the latter category, because he is working hard at it, but, then again, who knows?! Britton's therapist, Melissa, came 3 weeks ago and then this past week and said his improvement over those few weeks was dramatic. We are encouraged by that and so thankful for these great therapists who have invested in Britton's life.

Socially, Britton has mad skills. He loves to look people in the eye, raise his eyebrows (or just one brow), tilt his head down a bit, and give a big, slow smile. Yes, he is a huge flirt! He is making all kinds of noises, but his favorite sounds are ga-ga-ga or ah-ga-ah-ga, or ah-ya. Danny and I laugh because his "go to" consonant noises are Bs, Ds & Gs, which happen to be his initials. The G is by far his favorite sound, which I'm sure makes his Giffen grandparents proud. He is also clapping his hands a lot when he is excited, and this weekend we started teaching him to "high five" and have had some success. He is excellent at taking out shapes from his shape sorter, and has on a number of occasions, picked his shapes up and put then back in.

He is still a fabulous sleeper ... clocking in at around 11-12 hours each night. He takes a morning nap and an afternoon nap (about 3 1/2 hours total) each day. He loves to go to bed, and it is the easiest thing in the world to put him down. We lay him down in his crib, give him his lovey, his pacifier, cover him with his blanket, turn on his heartbeat lamb, and his CD player. Sounds like a lot of steps, I know! Then, we watch him on the video monitor, and without fail, he turns over on his belly, and talks himself to sleep. Lately, he has been sleeping with his face straight down into the mattress, and I don't like that so much. But we are so thankful for our champion sleeper! In the mornings, he will talk and play contentedly in his crib for awhile before we go get him. It is the sweetest thing in the world to wake up each day to the babbles of our little boy.



Over this last month, Britton has made the switch from pureed baby food to finger foods. I don't think I'm ready for this!!! And I'm struggling a little bit with the lack of variety of finger foods to give him. With the purees, I could whip up all kinds of interesting and varied foods, but I feel like now he is eating yogurt, turkey, cheese, sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas, pears and cheerios every day, and the menu doesn't veer far from this. I need to work on getting a bit more creative.

As you can tell in the pictures, Britton's hair has grown a lot in the last several months. He is actually even getting a few rogue long strands by his ears! It is so funny because I probably hear at least a couple of times a week how cute his "haircut" is. We have definitely never cut his hair. I think that the way I part his hair and brush it (his 'little man' do) makes his hair fall in a perfect little line. I do love brushing his hair ... I think mostly because for the first two weeks in the NICU when I couldn't hold him, I would just pick up the little brush at his isolette and brush his hair. Those were sweet bonding moments. Most of that black downy newborn hair fell out, though, and has grown back in a lighter brown. There is evidence that Britton will have some curly hair, as when it is rainy outside, or when he gets out of the bath, the hair on the back of his head either frizzes or curls up. There is curly hair on both sides of the family (including me), so it is not a surprise. We hope that one day he has a full head of long (perhaps, curly?) hair. It will be a long time before his first hair cut!

We have had Britton's first two sick visits to the doctor recently. Both were due to ear infections. And I'm a little worried about what the winter months hold for us if he has already had two ear infections prior to the illness-riddled colder months. Unfortunately, if he gets his ears from me, I had "about a million" (as my mom says) ear infections as a baby so it could be that he will have my bad ears, but I hope not. We'll see ... As I write this, he is pulling on his ears. Not a good sign.

Speaking of the winter months, we are very excited about celebrating our first Thanksgiving and Christmas as a family of three! I love the holidays and I love that, from this year forward, our holidays are forever changed. We look forward to establishing traditions for our young, little family. Britton will be a great age for his first Christmas and ... well, we just can't wait! I'm glad we are geared up for it because the holiday season is approaching full speed ahead. And then, before we know it, we'll be celebrating our precious son's first birthday. What a day that will be?!