Flip-Flop

Sorry folks, no pictures this week. The reason? Dad has the camera. And Dad's in China. So I'm afraid we'll have to skip this week in pictures. Oh well.

The good news for the week is that Jonathan is trying to roll over. He's succeeded a few times in going from stomach to back, but not really showing much interest in going the other way. He doesn't really like being on his stomach and does everything to get off it...and certainly doesn't try to get there purposefully! I think when his neck gets stronger he'll be less unhappy about being on his stomach. And his neck is getting much better - he holds it up by himself for longer and longer stretches of time and isn't doing a woodpecker imitation when he's held on someone's shoulder.

Jonathan turned three months old on the 11th. Leah didn't turn over until she was four or five months old...all she did was sleep until then!

He's laughed a few times, but he still is pretty stingy about smiling and laughing in my opinion. He smiles a little bit more every day, but you can't get one out of him consistantly. Now we're able to get one by playing with him, but even then you don't always know if he's going to smile or not when you play with him. He still is the most likely to smile when someone sings to him.

Mom's kind of jealous because pretty everyone manages to get a smile but her. Jonathan spends all the time when he's with her just watching her, like he always has. If someone else is holding him and he hears Mom he gets all wriggly and fussy till we give him to to her, and when she's around he won't look at anyone else...but he's even stingier about smiling for her than everyone else. Very odd, that. It's obvious that she means more to him than anyone else...but then...why not smile?

He also has been holding up his left hand and staring at it for long stretches of time. Then he tries to grab things with it. He doesn't do much with his right hand, just waves it around mostly. But he seems to have decided that his left hand belongs to him and he can make it do whatever he wants it to. It's pretty funny watching his hardrive processing this kind of information - you can sometimes see what he's thinking. A few days ago we tried giving him a spoon to play with. That was not such a smart thing. He wanted to put it in his mouth but his aim isn't very good, so he was whacking himself in the forehead and then almost put his eye out when he made a stab at his cheek. We gave him a breadcrust instead (smaller and softer!) and he proceeded to hit himself in the forehead, cheek, eye, chin, and nose. Everywhere except his mouth, which is (I think) where he really wanted to go.

We were talking to some friends this week who have a relative that has a lot of learning troubles and they were remarking on how when the relative was a baby Jonathan's age, he would just sit in his infant seat and stare off into space without moving or making a sound. He wouldn't cry when he was hungry or look at people or wave his hands or anything for a long time.

Jonathan has NEVER just sat in his seat and stared off into space without making a sound! Lately he's getting more and more wiggly so we're having to belt him into his bouncy chair - otherwise he'd twist right out onto the floor. He works hard at it. We're hoping he doesn't have to be on the respirator long when he gets the pull-through surgery to reconnect his colon to his intestine in a month or two. It'll be hard to keep him still, among other reasons.

The doctor said he doesn't really want to do that surgery until Jonathan's closer to 20 pounds, but I think that won't be until June or July at the current rate. He's 11 lbs 4 oz right now, gaining about half a pound a week. Good healthy growth, but not really fast enough to make 20 pounds by his six-month birthday, which is the doctor's cutoff date for when he wants to do the surgery. We'll just have to see how close he can come.