An Update and a Fix

Since Ezri is now officially 1 month old, here is a quick update on how she is doing, followed by an abundance of photos to give all of you baby junkies a fix.

Ezri has been out of the NICU for 11 days now and is proving to be a riduculously good baby. She only ever cries when she is hungry or naked - two things which we are well equipped to handle. She is sleeping for 2 or 3 hours at a time, both day and night, so we're really not dealing with much sleep deprivation - just getting it in small doses. According to the chart we were given at the hospital, she has hit all of her one month milestones, even without adjusting her age for prematurity! She lifts her head, follows lights and objects with her eyes, makes throat noises - pretty amazing considering she shouldn't be here for about 2 more weeks. She is staying awake for longer stretches of time and is starting to entertain us with a wide range of amusing and bizarre facial expressions.

Last Friday, Ezri had her first appointment with her new pediatrician, Dr. John. We really, really liked him and can happily report that he found our girl to be in outstanding health. She weighed in at 5 lbs. 6 oz. - up quite a bit from her hospital discharge weight of 5 lbs. 1/2 oz. Other than being on the tiny side, he said she was just perfect - which we already knew of course, but it's always good to have such things on a medical chart.

Today, a visiting nurse came out to do a physical for Help Me Grow. They will be coming out to assess Ezri to make sure she is meeting milestones and provide resources if she isn't. It's free for anyone in the state of Ohio, regardless of income, and works with infants through age 3. Even though I happen to be in the business of child development, I am completely in the dark about what babies should be able to do an when. When they told us that professionals would come to our house and tell us how Ezri is doing, we jumped at the chance.

At any rate, the nurse weighed Ezri as part of the physical and found that she is now 5 lbs. 12 oz.! That's up a whole 6 oz. in just 4 days - average growth is 1/2 oz. to 1 oz. per day. Seems our little peanut hit a bit of a growth spurt over the weekend, though from the looks of it most of the weight is in her cheeks.