Fashionista

Now that marlin has only the heart leads and the feeding tube, it is easier to put some clothes on him.  We did have a little preemie t-shirt on him, but it was way too big.  But here are some photos of a few other clothing items we did put on him.

This little hat came from the Forsyth's.  So cute, but a little big still.  It will be perfect this winter.

Mom bought a package of these little "sneaker" socks.  He has them in all different colors.  Still a little wide but they fit in length.

Aunt Dani and Uncle Shawn bought this little booties and hat set.  The outfit that goes with it is still too big, but we are getting plenty of use of the hat and booties.

Daddy TIme

Thor spent most of last week in Idyllwild with Gus.  When he came back, he was ready for a little snuggle with Marlin.  I think Marlin was ready to snuggle too!

A Grandma's Love

Marlin liked Gram Gram Ju Ju's purple hair.

Four and counting!

Marlin is doing great.  The big news is he broke 4 pounds.  Matter of fact he is 4 pounds and 2 ounces!  Gus thinks he is a chunk.

He had his eyes tested last week and his retinas are fully mature with no damage.  This is a big concern with preemies, especially micro preemies (which Marlin was).  Their eyes can’t handle the oxygen that they receive through the ventilator because their veins are so tiny.  We just assumed he would have eye trouble as he grew older.  He still can have issues with his eyes, but this was still very good news that there is no damage as of now.

He has really been getting the hang of eating (captain obvious, he has been gaining weight).  The cool thing is that his doctor, Dr. Phillips is a big advocate of breast before bottle.  So they have been letting me breast-feed him as much as he wants.  The little bugger is a natural.  He has done better then Gus did at full term.  All the nurses and doctors are so impressed with the tenacity with which he breast feeds.  He has been able to eat almost three complete feeds from the breast.  This may not sound impressive, but it really is.  He still gets most of his feeds through his feeding tube, but as he gets stronger, he will breast feed more and more.

Now that he is over 1800 grams, they are starting to wean him from the isolette.  The biggest advantage of the isolette is that it helps keep his temperature for him.  But as he gets bigger he needs to be doing that on his own.  Yesterday they started by leaving his isolette top open for most of the day.  He did pretty well, but by 7 pm he was getting cold.  As nice as it will be to have him in a bassinette, we kind of like the isolette because the NICU is one noisy place.  He is more protected from all the noise (the cries, beeps and alarms that are always present).  We realize that he is going to have to get used that eventually.

Octopus Garden

Gus really needed Fall clothes. So Nonni and I took him to Carters to do a little shopping.  After that we went to the Rain Forest café.  Gus wasn’t too much into the rain forest, especially after the “thunder storm” they put on every 30 minutes.  However, he really enjoyed the salt-water aquarium we sat next to.  The other thing he really liked was the balloon guy.  They had a guy walking from table to table making balloon animals.  This guy was good!  He made Gus a balloon octopus.  Gus thought this was pretty cool and insisted on taking him in the bath that night.  Here are a few pictures form the bath.  The last one is with his toy frog that our friends, Xabier and Jon gave him.  He loves it!

He thought it made a good hat too!

 

A Little Hold

Nonni finally got in on the action!  She held Marlin.  I know how hard it was for me to wait to hold Marlin, but poor Nonni had to wait even longer.  However, now she is able to hold him and is anjoying every minute of it.

 

 

In the swim

This summer has been one of the hottest summers I can remember.  We have air conditioning at the RMH, thank God.  However, when Gus comes to visit, staying in the house all day is not an option.  We have been fortunate to be able to visit the Dreyson Center which has a pool.  Gus has come a long way with his swimming in just a few outings.  The best is his ability to go under water now.  As long as he has his goggles on, he will go under to "see" the Orca whale family.  (We pretend a lot these days)  Here are a few pictures we took with the underwater camera.

 

 

 

Getting ready to head to the pool.