A number of exciting things has happened here in the household. First of all, Quince turned 6 months old as of the 6th of November! My has time flown by quickly. Just a mere 5 months ago we were coming up fast on his 1 month birthday and pondering if we were ever going to get out of Swedish. Fast forward to now and we have an extremely curious, alert boy. Those weeks in the hospital, wondering if he was ever going to do more than just lay there have certainly turned around! What I would have given to know then, that 4 to 5 later people comment daily on how attentive/alert/curious he is.

Our next bit of exciting information is that Quince is close to crawling! He can get to his hands and knees pretty well this last week. When he gets really excited you almost think he’s going to jump he rocks so much. So far the only way to see that is to have one of the cats nearby. Tassel is cool, but Huhu is especially awesome and he really wants to play with her. Both of them are pretty good about staying near him as long as he isn’t loud, however as soon as he lets out a squeal or yell, they leave. Usually this causes Quince to get a dejected look on his face. I think he’s starting to figure out that they will stay if he doesn’t make much noise. In addition to being on hands/knees, he can also pivot well by leaning forward slightly, landing on his hands then returning to sitting. He is also figuring out how to move backwards while on his stomach. Pretty soon the mess under the coffee table is going to need to be cleaned up as there will be no keeping him out of it.

He has tried a few different foods and seems to like them all. As expected the first bite usually is worth making a funny face over, but he quickly gets over that in favor of eating more. He’s really into it and sits well for it. We say he’s like me when it comes to eating. A simple food=good equation.

Thus far Quince’s favorite music is a Chinese song titled Meili de shunghua by a guy whose name I forget(I do know there is a version of it sung by Jackie Chan as well);The African Alphabet Song featured on A Sesame Street Celebration; Stereo Love by Edward Maya & Vika Jigulina; Sing, Sing, Sing by Benny Goodman. Favorite toys include: Sophie le giraffe; a green teether we call the triforce(yes we sing Legend of Zelda theme for it), Mr. Hedgehog(a stuffed toy).

Probably the most exciting is we are officially on the road to being without medication!! Our last neurologist appointment(which I forgot to post about) we were given the ok to lower his phenobarb when he turned 6 months old. Due to this, we were asked to come back rather soon. Yesterday morning was our return appointment. She’s very pleased with how he is doing. And based on this visit has put him on a plan which will decrease his medication to none over the next 2 months! We did get a referral for a Cranio Facial specialist at Children’s Hospital, she noticed something and wants to be sure that it is nothing. Rather than order a CT scan for him, she suggested he see this specialist for an opinion first. Works for me! I’d rather avoid a CT if we can. In reference to his head circumference(this was addressed on our Halloween appointment), she wants to keep an eye on it, however she is not worried as it is very obvious his development is unaffected.

Our next Swedish tour stop was the Peds Clinic. He impressed his occupational therapist was really pleased with how he is doing. All three points she looked for tested at or above babies his age. She feels that he should be rolling back onto his stomach more than he is currently. We are to work with him on this after diaper each change. We are still to not encourage a lot of standing with him. She said that since his left side control isn’t as good, rolling and crawling will be especially important for building pathways to bring them up to the same level. Probably my biggest compliment is being told after seeing Quince, that she would like to send a few of the other babies she sees home with me. 🙂 This was nice because(probably a new mom thing) I worry that I’m not doing enough work with him in terms of learning and moving or that I miss something. So it’s great to hear that in fact, we’re doing a great job.

Until the next edition!