yes, today was odin's 4 month birthday!

we celebrated by visiting his pediatric surgeon to have him check one of his hernia scars which, about a week ago, began to get red and puffy and we feared that it might be getting infected. earlier this week we stopped by the pediatrician's offices and they thought that the surgeons should take a look at it; although they didn't think it was infected, they didn't think it looked quite right.

before the surgeon looked at the scar, odin was weighed and much to our surprise we discovered that he's already blown past the 8 pound mark and tipped the scales at about 8 pounds 6 ounces, which means he's gained 11 ounces in just 3 days?! today he was weighed with all his clothes on which probably accounts for some of the weight increase, but it's likely that he's officially at least an 8 pounder.

as you can see, he's not very happy with being weighed.

happily, the surgeon determined that the redness and puffiness was not a serious concern. the stiches that are holding his incisions together are slowly dissolving and his body is mounting a "normal" immune response against the foreign material, creating a "stitch absyss" ( a process also known as "spitting a stitch" ) which will slowly get absorbed back into his body. they absyss shouldn't cause him any pain and will likely disappear in a few weeks.

we've noticed over the past week that odin is doing a much better job of holding his head up by himself and he's actually starting to make little baby 'oooohs". before they hit their original due date micropreemies are often much quieter than one might expect and they don't often make the sorts of cutesy noises that one normally associates with babies ( mostly they just emit grunts and groans ). technically, although he's not really even a month old ( in age adjusted terms ), it's interesting to look at how his development compares to "normal" (ack!) baby milestones. from a motor skills perspective, he seems to be ahead of the game and acts like any other 3-4 month old baby - he can hold his head up, reaches for objects, can roll over and can bring his hands together; but he still has some work to do on the verbal skills as he only very occasionally 'oooohs' and 'aaaaaahs', doesn't really seem close to imitating speech sounds and doesn't 'coooh' when you talk to him ( although he most certainly recognizes familiar voices ).

all in good time. all in good time.