while flickr has been having issues, i’ve been getting behind on posting updates. so for now, i’ll just post the super abridged version and maybe i’ll get around to posting the longer version when time permits. you can see annotated photos from the day here.

• 5 pounds (2280 grams)! woohoo! he’s as heavy as a bag of sugar! weight gain despite reflux is a good thing.
• infant massage. we’ve been giving him more massages lately to help keep the gas moving along. infant massage has also been shown to have all sorts of other benefits, so it’s a good thing to do regardless ( indeed, the nurses at the old nicu gave eric regular massages, but they don’t seem to think it’s as important at the new nicu ).
• yet another bath. you can’t have too many bath pictures can you? no, you can’t, especially when you’re giving a bath to a baby swaddled in cloth diapers. it’s cute. honest

laaaater:

5 pounds (2280 grams)! woohoo! he’s as heavy as a bag of sugar! weight gain despite reflux is a good thing.

hmmmm. can you tell he’s hungry? putting a web cloth diaper on him worked so well, that we decided to go all out and swaddle him completely, only unwrapping the parts that we needed to wash when we needed to. bath times go a lot smoother now.

yeah, he’s hungry, but he’s pacified temporarily by the supersized paci. i imagine that he’s looking at me thinking, “i’m going to remember this when i’m 16.”

time to be dried off by pops. my hands still look purty large next to his head.

we’ve been giving him more massages lately to help keep the gas moving along. infant massage has also been shown to have all sorts of other benefits, so it’s a good thing to do regardless ( indeed, the nurses at the old nicu gave eric regular massages, but they don’t seem to think it’s as important at the new nicu ).

we’re following the techniques described in Infant Massage: A Handbook for Loving Parents. i’m not an infant massage expert, but it seems like a good book.

little odin loves to have his feet massaged. being in the nicu is tough work and after a long day, he thinks it’s just grand it you spend a little extra time on his feet.

don’t forget to massage the arm and hand! he’s strong and likes to flex his muscles in an effort to impress the nurses.

this move is called “paddling the waves” or something like that. but really it should be called “letting out the gas”. the rice makes him less gassy than the barley, but since he’s still not supposed to even be born for two more weeks, any solid stuff is rough on his gastrointestinal tract. so we spend extra time getting the gas out.

after the bath and massage, he’s more eager than ever to show us that he doesn’t need any help keeping the supersized paci in his mouth.

the final step of a good massage, of course, is getting to sleep in your most comfortable ‘jammies.