Jonathan got off the oxygen last Tuesday. It was sort of sudden - we weren't planning to do it that quickly, but to wean him off by taking it off during the day Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and put it back on during the night. But that tape we had on to keep the oxygen canula in place finally irritated his skin too much. We got up Tuesday morning and his cheeks were all red and there were blisters around the tape. Mom said, "That's it, we're taking it off!"
We couldn't get the pulse-ox machine to work reliably, so we just kept an eye on him to make sure he was sleeping, nursing, and staying cool (he got all sweaty when he had to work to breathe). He did fine all day. Then at night we were going to try to put the oxygen canula back on without using tape, but we couldn't do it and so Mom and Dad decided to leave it off. And that was that. The nurse came the next day to check on him and his oxygen was at 96%, which made Mom very happy. The lady didn't want to take the oxygen because she said it would be good to have "just in case" until we went to visit the cardiologist. I think that a lot of the people at the hospital still thought he was having trouble with his breathing because of his heart, but as the cardiologist said two days ago when we went to visit her, "whenever a baby with a questionable heart gets sick, everyone likes to blame everything on that".
Her first words when she came in to look at him were, "That is NOT a baby with heart failure!"
It helped that Jonathan was putting on quite a performace. He was scooting on the table, kicking and waving, chasing a little light around that the nurse was trying to distract him with. And chewing on his fists, which is apparently a big deal to the doctor. She thought that was a very good thing.
And here I just thought, "Uh-oh, he's going for his thumb. Better stop that or we'll never break that habit!"
We've had trouble with pacifiers before, and it's pretty tough to "accidentally" lose a thumb...
His weight has come back up - he was over ten pounds when he got sick, but he went down to 9 in the hospital. He's now officially up to 10 lbs 2 oz., 23 inches long. He's FINALLY growing out of his newborn sleepers...I was starting to think he'd be a year old in that size! On the other hand...usually babies get big so fast that nice little newborn cuddly size is gone in about two weeks. Jonathan's been that size for three months. Enhanced enjoyment, I say.
We've gotten a lot more smiles out of Jonathan, but he's still not what you'd call a predictable smiler. He smiles when he wants to and can't yet be induced to by playing. Although yesterday Dad was "playing rough" with him and he started laughing. All in one big burst at a time, like he used to cry. So we tried playing rough (which means growling and pretending to eat him and rolling him around and tickling him, etc.) and he kept smiling every time someone pretended to eat his belly and growled. He also has become unerring with his hands. Put your head on his stomach and he latches onto your hair...and it's hard to pry yourself loose again!
When we're holding him he's holding his own body up, too. It used to be that when someone held him up on their shoulder he would just flop over like a little bean bag, but now he holds his whole body up so he can look around. And chew on his fists. Can't forget about that part. You'll be holding him and he'll be smacking away right next to your ear. It's hard not to laugh...and then when he's hungry and tries switching to your neck (hey, it's right by his head and it's warm skin, right??) it gets really funny. "Aaah! He's going for the jugular!"
His hair is going from blond to sandy brown, about the same color mine and Leah's was. And he has the most beautiful color blue eyes. Very dark blue with white flecks in them. We thought he might be a summer at first, but I think his skin was still yellow with jaundice. It's cleared now at it's very blue-white like mine and Leah's and Katherine's. He'll probably sunburn like crazy if we're not careful!
I took him for his first walk this week - it was warm outside (well...relatively...50 degrees), so I bundled him up on Saturday and took him around the block. He might've like it if he hadn't been in his snowsuit. He doesn't appreciate his arms being held down and if I stopped walking to check on him he started squirming and complaining. He "talks" a lot when he's complaining, making a lot of noises in a complaining sort of voice with all different inflections like he's really telling me what he thinks of the whole situation. Which he is...just not in English.
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