Monday, February 22, 2016

Connor is 12 months corrected age today! His due date was one year ago today. We often get asked which day we celebrate as Connor's birthday and so far we have celebrated his actual birthday, November 2, with family and friends and will have a mini celebration today for his corrected age birthday. We also might have another small celebration on the anniversary of when he came home from the hospital on March 5. This sounds really cheesy but every day with Connor is a celebration for us because we almost lost him so many times and are infinitely lucky to have him with us today. 

Developmentally, Connor is making strides! He has been working so hard at occupational therapy and can stand now pretty well on his own while holding on to furniture. He can army crawl REALLY fast now so he doesn't want to learn to crawl on hands and knees because it slows him down. He can sit OKAY on his own but is still not 100%. He loooooves his big brother Cooper, but is still learning how to be gentle with him.

We think we finally have a handle on his reflux issue that was becoming a real problem around December and January and we tried MANY different brands of formula, bottles and methods of feeding. He was back down to the 3rd percentile for growth so we had to add extra calories to all of his solids by adding butter, coconut oil and 18% cream. Our magic solution ended up being mixing vanilla flavoured toddler formula and thickened infant formula and only giving three 5-ounce bottles a day instead of five. He loves almost all solids he has tried but has a really sensitive gag reflex so he prefers pureed and soft foods over finger foods. 

He weighs about 17 lbs now and has 7 teeth! He is very chatty and has lots of great conversations with Coop. He has lots of follow up appointments (eyes, growth and development, pediatrician, dentist, speech therapist) this month because of his age and had a hearing test earlier this month. The test showed that he has some hearing loss and has to be tested again. We are optimistic that the test result was just because he had some fluid in his ears leftover from a cold and because he was bored with their testing games and didn't want to participate!

Connor has had three minor illnesses since November but none resulted in hospitalization which is amazing considering his premature immune system! We are so lucky that he has been so healthy since we brought him home. 

We celebrated today by going to swimming lessons, installing Connor's new "big boy" car seat and going to Menchie's for frozen yogurt! 

Happy "birthday" Connor! We love you!