Max's Tricks

This five-minute video shows Max doing some of his tricks.  Max is watching us eat dinner (including Felix encountering seaweed salad for the first time) and chewing on his blanket, perhaps out of sympathy.  We've got the tray latched on to his kidcart; it makes a convenient place to store toys.

You can hear Carolyn and me discussing the fate of a bowl of Felix's cereal, where we resort to spelling out key words.  I got H-A-L-F-W-A-Y through a bowl before I decided it was D-I-S-G-U-S-T-I-N-G.

Max's Tricks from Codered Summer on Vimeo.

Max is babbling a lot more

Max & the rattle
Originally uploaded by andreas.lehnert

Just a couple of weeks ago, while still at the HSC, we thought we heard Max emit his first few coos. Last week, at our first appointment, the pediatrician coaxed a few gurgles out of Max. She then asked us whether we had heard him using consonants. Who knew the fricative was such a developmental milestone?

Over the past few days, Max has been babbling a lot more. I've been listening for consonants but I can't pick them out of the liquid stream-of-consciousness speaking style Max prefers. I'll leave it to the pediatrician to decide later this week. In the pre-dawn darkness today I tried to capture his logorrhea, but Max broke off his monologue to play with the video camera and the rattle. I'll be on the lookout for my next chance. In the meantime, please enjoy Max being alternatively delighted and frightened by his rattle.

His babbling has an edge of tension to it: if you weren't looking at him, you would think that he was crying, or getting ready to. But he does it all with a big smile on his face, and he usually doesn't break into tears, so he must not be in distress.

On a related note, Max is fascinating by people talking. Carolyn and I were chatting in the kitchen and we noticed his head tracking from speaker to speaker, like at a tennis match. We've seized on this interest to also make a big deal out of eating. "You see, Max, mommy and I are using our mouths ... to eat ... and we've got big smiles on our faces so it must be fun". He doesn't seem ready to give up the tube just yet though.

From January 11

Max pulls on his ND tube
Originally uploaded by andreas.lehnert

Here's a video from the archives. Max is still at Georgetown, in the high-intensity side of the NICU. This video was taken during the period when Max had his NG tube pushed into his duodenum in an attempt to cut down on his reflux-related aspirations. At the time, these aspirations were seriously damaging his lungs' ability to maintain a high blood oxygen concentration.

Max can be seen pulling at his tube; in fact, later that night he would successfully pull it out.

He pulled out his NG tube here at home a couple of nights ago. Fortunately, placing an NG tube is relatively simple matter. Forcing a tube into the duodenum or further (e.g. into the jejunum) is a more serious matter, requiring skilled nurses, an x-ray and a couple of hours.

I may try placing an ng tube into my own stomach just to see what it's like.