My big boy

We are so proud of our big, little boy. He is doing so well. Josh had his four month appointment today, which means shots. Everything went well with the doctor. Josh got five vaccines today, but they were mixed into two shots so Josh only got stuck twice. The nurses are really good about it. They stick him at the same time. It still breaks my heart to watch him get his shots. I feel like such a bad mother for letting him experience pain, but I know this is necessary. I know that I am really being the best mother I can be by getting my son vaccinated. Josh decided today that it wasn't necessary to cry until they had pulled the shots out of his little leg. And he only cried for a second. He is such a good boy when we go to the doctor.

We had a good visit with the doctor. My little monkey is now 14 pounds! He moved up from around the 15-20% in weight to between the 35-40%. We are so proud of him. He is still pretty short, only reaching about 22 inches in length, but we know that his height will catch up later, especially since his daddy is so tall. Josh is developing right on schedule. There is no evidence of prematurity, other than his size. He is smart and has physical development that is where it should be for a 4 1/2 month old. The doctor says the only thing that may concern me is that he may appear to crawl, walk, or talk late, but that boys do these things later than girls.

Our little monkey has marvelous head control so we got the green light to feed him baby food! I am so excited for this. I was under the impression that we would be told we could only give him baby cereal at first, but the doctor felt that since he had been having cereal in his bottle for awhile now, that he could eat some baby food as well. The plan is to let him have two meals a day. We are giving him baby cereal in a dish for one meal. He can have baby food at another meal, and still get some cereal in his bottle before bed. The doctor wanted us to start Josh on fruit. So tonight Josh ate apples and he loved them! The doctor said intially Josh may only eat a few bites while he got used to taste, texture, and the spoon, and then he would build up to half a container within a couple weeks. Well, Josh went ahead and ate half the container of apples. I knew we would have a good eater on our hands!

The other good report from the doctor involves his caffeine and the apnea monitor. Josh has been back down to 0.4 mL of caffeine once a day (as opposed to 0.6). He will be on 0.4 for three weeks, and if he handles that well he will move down to 0.2 until his 6 month checkup on May 5. If he has tolerated all of that well, he will come off his medicine on May 5. Then we will only have to keep him on the monitor 2-4 weeks longer! Praise God! I am so ready for him to lose that monitor.

I feel so much better after such a great checkup. I have been waiting for Josh to thrive like this. This has been a long time coming. We have come so far from where we were in December. I think about all the nights I spent crying in November and December, wondering why we were going through that; wondering what I had done wrong and I thought it would never get better. Now I feel so humbled and blessed. There was a beautiful lesson in everything we went through. I know I will never take my beautiful little boy for granted. He is such a precious gift from God. And he is growing up so fast! I am so proud of his improvement. I look at him and know I am blessed and lucky to be his mom. He is going to be just fine. I praise God for all of this.