wow. has it really has been a week? i guess it has. and he just keeps getting stronger and stronger with each day.

i know every nicu parent probably thinks it, but i know he’s really grabbed the hearts of many of the nurses. they go far above the call of duty for him, stopping by his station on their off hours or when he’s technically not on their watch, snapping polaroids of him doing cute stuff when we’re not around ( today we found a polaroid that one of his nurses took last night. it’s really blurry, but the nurse had set his stuffed dog next to him and wrapped his little arms around it and cuddled with it for a long time. ) and even shooting great little movies of him ( you’ll see those in good time ). he’s a devilish little charmer and some of the nurses even think he’s quite a rascal. i’m not sure what that means, but they seem to think it’s a good thing.

today has been fairly quiet, which is exactly what we want. without all the hullaballoo, you can pick up subtle differences between the days, such as he’s getting much more responsive to my voice; today, when i first came up to the bed and started to peel back the plastic wrap, i said, “heellloooooooo! eric.” and he immediately thrust his little arm up and out the enclosure through the narrow slit in the wrap, catching me by surprise. sadly, i don’t have my camera with me every single instant of the time that i’m there, so i missed that shot.

later he decided he wanted to squeeze my finger, which was fine by me. technically, this is not his first finger squeeze. auntie diane has been claiming that he’s been squeezing her finger for days. but today i guess he decided that i was a good substitute.