Personality Development

Let's hope little Evey turns out to be a little kinder than this young gentleman. Hilar!

The Beauty of Owning a Yard....is maintaining it!

Well, we finally broke down and purchased a gas lawn mower. We had been using a push mower for the last year or so. Despite the benefits to the environment, the push mower ended up being a lot of work for a very poor result at the end of the day. The grass always ended up being cut unevenly despite numerous adjustments to the wheels.
After consulting with the Greely guru of yard maintenance (aka Dad) we settled on the Yard Works 158cc 2-in-1 mower from Canadian Tire. Assembly was pretty simple. The lesson learned with this new acquisition is to always remember to screw on the cap to the fuel tank before starting the job... whoops! Our yard and front lawn look fantastic and I'm sure our neighbours are just as happy as we are :)

Wimbledon

It was a very humid day here in Brantford, so Evan and I spent the day cooling off indoors with the AC turned up and caught a few tennis matches now that Wimbledon is on. We are both hoping that Federer will win his 15th grand slam title, and it will be interesting to see if the home-grown favorite, Andy Murray, will live up to the hype and join Roger in the final. We shall see!
Evan was very alert for most of the day and has been particularily enamored with the activity bar on his bouncer as of late. Its amazing to watch him grow and become aware of the world around him!

Hernia Boy

As some of you might know, little Evan has been diagnosed with having two hernias. We noticed that something was a little unusual with Evan last Wednesday, and at his 2 month check up the following day, the doctor suspected that something was up and told us that we would be getting a referral sometime soon to see a pediatrician. A few hours after our appointment on Thursday, little Evey wasn't looking too well, so we took him to the ER at BGH. There he was seen by an on-call ped who diagnosed him with an umbilical hernia and an inguinal hernia.

The umbilical hernia is of little consequence, is sort of endearing (looks like a cabbage patch doll belly button), and should resolve on its own over the next few months. The inguinal hernia is a different story and needs to be surgically closed very soon since they never close on their own and there is a risk that part of the bowel can become entrapped. We met with a pediatric surgeon at McMaster Children's Hospital yesterday for a consult. She said that 25% of preemie boys get inguinal hernias. Evan surgery's will be scheduled for sometime in the next 2 weeks. We're just waiting for the call.

LOL

Perhaps the funniest pic I've seen in a long time...

Andrew's 1st Father's Day!

Our family celebrated Father's Day for the first time today. We went for a nice walk on the Grand River trail this afternoon. Evan got his daddy an ERGO organic cotton baby carrier (in chocolate brown) - very West Coast - so that they can do walks, hikes and housework together. All in all, we had a wonderful day!

The Preterm Growth Chart

Some simple digging turned up an adjusted growth chart for preterm babies. I'm not sure why we aren't comparing Evan to THIS chart as opposed to the growth chart for full term babies that our GP's office is currently using. According to this, Evan, who weighs 3.9 kgs, is precisely at the 50th percentile for preterm babies at 42 weeks gestational age.
Thus, our kid is average for growth.
Let's use the right tools, people! It saves new parents a lot of anguish and despair!

Evan is 2 Months Today

Evan turned 2 months today! Which means that he had his 2 month check up today as well as his first set of immunizations. We had him sufficiently drowsy on Infant Tylenol before we brought him in. He did well with the needles (one in each thigh), crying only during the injection but then settling right down afterward (thank goodness, it just makes you want to cry when they are in discomfort or pain). Poor little guy.

Evan weighed in at 8lbs, 10oz which we thought was pretty darn good! The nurse, however, put his weight and length measurements on a percentile chart and announced that he was not even on the chart yet for a child 2 months of age and that he hasn't caught up yet. This revelation sort of dashed our optimism - I mean he was born 6 weeks early and he's already doubled his weight - what do they want?!?! To make matters worse, when the nurse loudly clapped her hands to test Evan's hearing he didn't startle - so the nurse thought that he was deaf as well as underweight. We, of course, know that Evan can hear just fine, having passed his hearing tests in the hospital and responding to sound at home. He was probably drowsy from the Tylenol and he's pretty used to noise having spent half of his life in a noisy hospital. So, in a nutshell, our appointment did not go the way we thought it would, but we're all for giving Evan the time and encouragement he needs to "catch up " his own time. Take THAT medical profession!

Sorry so long since the last post! Its been a very busy time at the Welsh household. Laurier-Brantford University held its convocation ceremony this past Wednesday. Andrew was asked to carry the mace to lead the academic procession. He was very honoured and excited to be the "Bedel". Andrew says the mace was tremendously heavy and was glad that everything went smoothly since he had to hold it in front of a couple hundred people for a loooong time. :)

Being a beautiful sunny afternnon, Evan and I joined Andrew for the outdoor reception in Victoria Park after the ceremony concluded. It is so rewarding to see the students that we taught graduate, especially for Andrew who has taught so many of the students, sometimes several times! Many of the students were excited to meet Evan (and of course we were delighted to show him off). Evan was a good boy and slept in his stoller the entire time.

After the reception we joined our dear friends Carrie and Erin to go for a Sushi lunch . This was Evan's first visit to a restaurant and he was precious. I just put him in his sling and he slept through lunch (I was very careful not to drop any wasabi on the little guy).

Outside of our big day on Wednesday, Evan surpirsed us during tummy time this week when he, out of no where, suddenly demonstrated his ability to push his head and chest up using his arms to get a good look around the room. For a little guy, he is a very strong!

We're planning a trip to Ottawa very soon, once Evan get's his immunizations. We'll keep you updated once we firm up some plans!