Seven Month Old Developmental Check-In (Stage III, Midbrain and Subcortical Areas)

Damien, the day he turned seven months old

Early last June, sitting in a hospital bed holding my tiny newborn, all wrinkled, blotchy-skinned, and helpless, it was hard to fathom that in just a little over 200 days he would be creeping [crawling], standing, "talking", understanding, and charming at the level he is now.

Seven months passes by in the blink of an eye.

Seven months is also another benchmark age on the Developmental Profile for the average age for babies to achieve stage III brain function (using the midbrain and subcortical areas).

In speaking of the profile, the IAHP says

"The time schedule is highly variable and depends, not upon genetic factors, but rather upon the frequency, intensity and duration of the stimuli provided to the brain by the child's environment, which is notably and most often his family."

The idea is that the brain grows by use, not by some biological alarm clock. Opportunity, frequency, encouragement, and to a lesser decree, personality will determine development. Our goal is, of course, to give our baby as much of these things as possible and do all we can to help him, not hinder him.

Damien, 5 months, pauses his creeping adventures for a smile

1. Stage III Mobility: Creeping on hands and knees, culminating in cross pattern creeping

Age achieved: 5 months, 2 weeks old

Description: "Creeping" is what most of us know as "crawling" - that cute little hands and knees movement that typifies the picture of babyhood. "Cross pattern creeping" refers to the cross pattern exhibited when a baby uses his opposite extremities simultaneously to move while on his hands and knees - right arm and left leg go forward, then left arm and right leg go forward.

Damien achieved the official "cross pattern creeping" at five months old. He has been "crawling" in other formations - more or less scooting, hopping, lunging, twisting, and rolling - since four months. He has had movement on his stomach (pushing his legs off the ground and propelling himself forward) since birth.

His most current interest is pulling himself to standing, which he does essentially all day, every day, creeping around the house finding different pieces of furniture that can act as a support frame for his vertical position.

Damien, at four months, babbling on

2. Stage III Language: Creation of meaningful sounds

Age achieved: 1-2 months

Description: "Creation of meaningful sounds" is when the baby essentially begins to make noises, beyond a basic cry, that have meaning attached to them. He begins to be able to communicate not only his needs, but his wants, moods, feelings, and preferences. These are not necessarily first English words, but words for him nonetheless.

Damien began creating meaningful sound at about 1-2 months old. He began to coo when he was happy, "yell" when he wanted attention, and whine when he was tired.

At four months, Damien said his first English word - "dada". He still attaches meaning to that word and says it when he sees pictures of his dad. His second English word, "more" (which comes out more like "muh" or "mah") began the day he turned seven months old. Ever since then, he creeps up to me and says "muh" when he wants food, or while we are eating and he wants another bite. (So he has achieved stage IV language development, "Two words of speech used spontaneously and meaningfully", an average 12 month milestone).

Damien, at six months, practicing using the prehensile grasp with small objects

3. Stage III Manual: Prehensile grasp

Age achieved: 3 months

Description: The "prehensile grasp" is when a baby is able to voluntarily pick up objects using his whole hand. The four fingers and palm are mainly used, while the thumb is usually not.

Damien achieved the prehensile grasp at around at the end of his third month. The first object that he was able to easily grab and pick up were some of Hunter's nerf gun bullets. He is now working on the pincer grasp (picking up objects with thumb and forefinger) and has nearly mastered it (an average 12 month milestone).

Damien, at two months, had grown tired of his detail board and was looking around the room for new things

4. Stage III Visual Competence: Appreciation of detail within a configuration

Age achieved: 1.5 months old

Description: At birth, babies can see only light and dark. Soon after, babies begin to see outlines. The next step is being able to see "detail within a configuration", for example the details of mother's face within the outline of her head.

Damien achieved this stage of development at approximately 4-5 weeks of age. He began to smile in response to facial expressions (without sound). He began to study detail on his daddy's camouflage uniform, or the patterns on his bouncy seat. By two months, he was studying details from across the room.

By 5-6 months, he had achieved the next stage (level IV) of development: depth perception. At seven months now his depth perception is quite good - he creeps quickly and easily without running into things much anymore, and reaches well with good accuracy.

Damien, seven months, quite happy with himself that he is no longer afraid of the vacuum

5. Stage III Auditory Competence: Appreciation of meaningful sounds

Age achieved: 2 months

Description: Baby listens to many sounds in his environment from birth, and will soon begin to understand their meaning. For example, the bathtub water running, the door opening, and mother's voice. In family members' voices, he begins to understand the tone of voice and their meanings.

Damien began to be comforted by a soothing voice at around two months old. He started laughing at silliness, and being scared by upset voices. He was deathly afraid of the vacuum for a while, now he seems to have proudly conquered his fear.

Between one and four months, he also achieve the next stage (level IV) of development: "Understanding of two words of speech". At four weeks he began to understand the meaning of the word "nurse". Other words soon followed, including "potty" (and other words associated with it) and "up". 

Damien at two months, laughing with a tickle

6. Stage III Tactile Competence: Appreciation of gnostic sensation

Age achieved: 2 months

Description: "Gnostic" comes from the Greek root word for knowledge, "gnosis". Gnostic sensation means, literally, "knowing sensation". At birth babies cannot feel very well - they may not respond consistently to pain, hot, or cold. Soon they begin to respond to these more intense sensations quickly and instantly. The next stage is to be able to respond to more variances in sensation and be able to appreciate them - for example, the subtleties of cool and warm, the peaceful calm of a soothing massage, or the humor of a boisterous tickle.

Damien achieved this stage at about 2 months old. He began to respond to tickles, enjoy his infant massages, and notice the differences in textures and what made him comfortable or uncomfortable. At four months, he achieved stage IV, "Tactile understanding of the third dimension in objects which appear to be flat". This is when he started to notice small things (like specks on the floor), or things that clearly looked flat (like a piece of paper) and started feeling for them and trying to grab them.

Summary

So in summary, this is what my notes on Damien's little Developmental Profile look like (in the back of my How Smart is Your Baby book) for him at seven months, one day old:

Motor:

 Sensory:

He is still perfecting his stage IV (green) areas, but overall is doing very well. Environment really does make such a huge difference!

Thank you for your comments!

Damien is 7 months, 0 week old

Inspirational Babies

Babies.

Never content to stay at their current level of skill.

Always, always, always learning something new.

They're so inspiring, aren't they?


Damien is 6 months, 1 week old

Baby Homeschool: Week 18 (4 months, 1 week old)

Damien doing "push ups"

Damien is currently four months and one week old. He is a handful, and a joy.

With Hunter's school work and me going back to work (or, more accurately, work coming back to me), it has been a very busy past two months.

We have not started a math, encyclopedic knowledge, or reading program yet. The activities that we have done have been casual and somewhat sporadic.

And as always he has just been having fun being a baby.

October 8-14, 2011
Stage II-III on Developmental Profile

Some recent highlights:

• He starting sitting up completely independently this week
• Daddy came home after being gone for a month. We learned that he definitely understands object permanence and has a semi long-term memory! 
• He loves to try and put his entire fist in his mouth
• He blows "raspberries" and squeals a lot

Motor

(Mobility) Damien continues to spend a great deal of time on the floor, rolling, twisting, and making clumsy, adorable attempts at scooting. However, on most days he spends an equal or even greater amount of time being held, or carried around in the sling. Since learning to roll over 1+ month ago, he doesn't spend much time in his track. (2+ hours day opportunity to move on floor)

He recently loves to practice "push ups", where he lifts his whole upper body off the floor with his hands. He usually switches between "push ups" and " air swimming", where his tummy is on the ground but his legs and arms are lifted off the floor.

Every once in a while, he makes attempts to crawl ["creep"]. He gets up on his knees and elbows, but not yet on his hands and knees. He gets frustrated easily!

He still only rolls over to the left side! He will only roll over to the right side if I help him.

Stuffing his whole fist in his mouth is his newly developed frenzy

(Manual) Damien spends lots of time reaching for objects and can get ahold of them with a pretty good degree of accuracy. When you put something in front of him, he grabs for it with both hands. Everything goes straight to his mouth!

He still seems to have a preference for his right hand. He still only puts his right foot in his mouth, although he plays with both feet.

He can support his entire body weight while hanging from my fingers for a good ten or so seconds. Usually when I pick him up, I let him grasp my thumbs and he hangs on while I lift him up to me.

His fairly recent development is to constantly chew on his fingers and try and shove his entire fist into his mouth!

Shortly after turning four months old, Damien surprised me
by deciding he can sit up independently

(Balance) Damien learned how to sit up this week! Although most of the time, he doesn't really care to sit up, for the first time he showed me that he can, with no support and for a good 10 seconds.

For some reason I am still terrible about doing the Doman balance activities. But he gets rocked, moved around, and carried in the sling, so that counts, right?

(Swimming) Right now we have been getting about 1-2 bathtub swimming sessions per week in. We mostly do floating on his back, going under water, and just relaxing. He has kind of learned to go under water, if it is very brief, and at least he doesn't breath in the second his face touches the water anymore!

 Sensory

(Visual) We have not really been doing the Doman sensory activities. Along the lines of visual stimulation, a couple times this week we looked at reading words for "Mommy", "Daddy", "Hunter", and "Damien".

(Tactile) No Doman tactile programs lately, but we have done a few massages per week, and he gets to play with lots of differently textured toys and other things.

(Auditory) Our auditory activities currently include lots and lots of talking and singing (more on some days than on others), some occasional music, and pointing out environmental sounds ("Do you hear the sound of the water running?" etc.)

 Social

Ah, this boy is such a joy! He is extremely social, loves to talk, smile, and be with people and see what they are doing! He gets bored after not very long.

(Language) Damien laughs, blows raspberries, gurgles, squeals and screeches, and makes a lot of vowel sounds with a few consonant sounds. He is quite the conversationist and talks a lot throughout the day.

We have recently begun "journaling" with him, while he "tells us about his day" and we write down or video record what he says. He also recently got his chance to make marks with a marker in his journal.

(Sign Language) I have introduced him to the signs for are "Mommy", "Daddy", and "potty".

 Sleep, Eating, Elimination

(Sleep) Damien's sleep has not been the greatest as of the past few weeks. He doesn't seem to get enough naps during the day, which can make him grouchy. They are unfortunately often interrupted. Thankfully most nights he sleeps from 7:30 PM until 7:00 AM, waking up to nurse usually a couple times in the early morning still (between 4:00-6:00) but since I sleep with him it isn't a big deal.

(Eating) Nursing is going well. He is still exclusively breast-fed and we don't plan to introduce any solids until closer to the six month mark. He seems to nurse frequently a lot lately.

(Elimination) Damien goes potty on the Ikea potty sometimes a few times a day, sometimes not at all. Lately almost every time I put him on it he pees within a few moments, which is encouraging. He seems to "get" what it is for, at least!

"And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." 

Luke 2:4

Damien was 4 months, 1 week old [18 weeks] this week

Baby Mobility Development: Moving Around on Back

Damien moves a lot.

He scoots down his track on his tummy, but also, especially lately (over the past week or two) has been getting around on his back.

He likes to kick a lot when he is on his back (especially kicking me to get my attention) but sometimes he actually lifts his bottom off of the floor, or pushes off of things to do sort of a "backward scoot" in the supine position.

Hence, putting him on his back to limit his mobility (such as when I don't want him to go anywhere, like for diaper changes) is not exactly all that effective anymore.

Damien is 2 months, 2 weeks old [11 weeks]

Mobility Development: Up on Knees

Damien's most recent development: Getting up on his knees.

I must admit that, in all honesty it is quite humorous to see his little booty sticking up in the air as he scoots (crawls) down his track.


Damien is 2 months, 2 weeks old (10 weeks)

Tutorial: How to Make a Picture Detail Checkerboard (Infant Visual Stimulation)

Damien loving his new picture board, 8 weeks old

Once baby is seeing more details (rather than just outlines), a great way to encourage them to use their vision and give them something interesting to look at and explore is to make a simple picture board.

In How Smart is Your Baby, Glenn Doman recommends adding different colored silhouettes of various objects to your baby's checkerboard, and rotating them regularly so that they don't become "like old wallpaper: beloved but not very stimulating".

There is the recommendation of course but not really any guidance on how to build this rotatable checkerboard. 

Here was my solution:

I printed out the colored silhouettes and attached them to black and white squares, then laminated them. My original idea was to stick velcro dots on the back of each one along with velcro dots on the board, but with as many squares as there were it would end up not only being costly in velcro but also difficult to store all the now-bulky cards.

My solution was to make clear pockets on the checkerboard where the squares could be slid in, using clear contact paper. This tutorial will show you how to make those pockets.

Materials

The materials you will need are:

• The checkerboard (a piece of foam board with 5-inch black squares glued on - tutorial here)
• The picture cards (printable color silhouette version available here, as well as a stencil [ink-saving] version here)
• 12-inch wide roll of clear contact paper
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Yard stick (or ruler, straightedge) 

1. Cut a piece of contact paper that goes about an inch over each end of the checkerboard.

2. Cut that piece in half, to six inches wide. The piece you will use for your pocket should look like the one above.

The next step is to take that piece of contact paper, and fold part of it over so that it sticks to itself and creates a clear, non-sticky plastic pocket.

3. Use yardstick/ruler to make a straight line that is 2.5 inches away from the edge, then fold at that line, backing-side up, and crease with your fingernail. 

You will then have this (above): a 2.5 inch "pocket"with one inch of sticky contact paper on the bottom to secure pocket to board.

4. Next, cut a piece out of the ends where they will wrap around. This part will secure to the back of the board. 

The end result will look like this (above). It is important that you cut out this rectangle about a quarter inch past the end of the board. You don't want any of the sticky part of the contact paper to be on the front of the board - if there is, the picture cards will stick to it when you slide them to the edge.

5. Next, unfold contact paper, lay flat, and carefully remove backing.

6. Take the contact paper and very carefully fold it over so that the "pocket" section sticks to itself. Start in the middle, at the edge, and carefully smooth out little by little towards one end, then go back to the middle and smooth out towards the other end.

Note: you will notice from the above pictures that the contact paper was actually folded "backwards" when it still had the backing on it. This is very important to do because then it will "stand up". If you fold it the other way, as soon as you take off the backing the entire thing will stick to itself and will not be smooth at all.

Your end result should look like this.

7. Flip over the pocket you just made and line up the bottom of the non-sticky part with the bottom of one row of boxes on the checkerboard.

8. Smooth out pocket so it sticks securely to board.

9. Pull on end pieces as hard as you can to make the pocket lay as flat and tight as possible, then wrap around and attach sticky ends to back.

The end result (after you've added all of your pockets) should look something like this.

The folding and sticking the contact paper to itself is the hardest part - I actually had to throw away three different "pockets" due to incurable bubbles and wrinkles that happen when the contact paper sticks to itself too soon. Try not to be too worried about perfectionism, though - the point is to grow your baby's vision, not win any kind of award.

10. After you've made your board, get out your cards, slide some of them into the pockets, and enjoy!

It's as good idea to change out your cards and/or move them around daily. Keep baby visually exploring and, in turn, visually growing!

"Incline thine ear, O LORD, and hear; open thine eyes, O LORD, and see..." 

Isaiah 37:17

Damien is 8 weeks old

Damien Crawling at 7 Weeks

I haven't posted a video of Damien on his crawling track since, oh, he was less than a week old.

He has made a lot of progress since those first reflexive movements. 

Since about, oh, five or six weeks old has been really getting the hang of this mobility thing and digging his little feet into the floor intentionally and really getting places.

Another milestone? Less fussing. Which is great. He really seems to be enjoying his mobility.

Damien is 1 month, 2 weeks old (7 weeks)

Damien's Programs 6 Weeks Old

July 16-22, 2011
Stage II on Developmental Profile

We still aren't 100% consistent on checking everything off of our daily lists, but Damien is still growing and developing beautifully, we are getting in lots of cuddling and smiles, and all in all having a great time with this new little one. I try not to beat myself up about "not doing everything". 

The most important thing is to talk to him, hold him, and love him - all of our little "programs" are just fun extras.

Some highlights of another beautiful week with a beautiful boy:

• He is crawling faster than ever, and more happily, since the addition of a receiving blanket under his head.
• He has outgrown his contrast board and is wanting more varied, interesting things to look at.
• His long rang vision is improving. He can see me from across a small room.
• He is having even more wonderful conversations, "talking" so much and using all kinds of sounds and body language to communicate.

Damien hangs independently for increasingly long periods

 Motor

(Mobility) Honestly, he is still nowhere near spending the recommended 4-18 hours a day in his crawling track, but his crawling and head control are still doing great. He was averaging probably 30-45 minutes on his tummy in his track daily, but that time has been extremely shortened now that he is crawling so much faster. He usually descends down his inclined track (5.5 feet long) in 2-4 minutes now, instead of 10-20. So his sessions have been shorter, but I haven't really upped the frequency much yet.

(Manual) He hangs from my thumbs completely independently pretty much 100% of the time now instead of only sometimes. He really enjoys this activity. He is in stage II now but I haven't really been practicing the vital release yet.

(Balance) I have been doing a few vestibular exercises, beyond the typical rocking / carrying / moving. He has become really sensitive to movement, and frequently startles when we pick him up too quickly (which is not even very quick). I try and be extremely slow and steady with him because of this.

(Swimming) We had a few sessions of bath tub swimming. Even though I have been cleared by the doctor now I still haven't taken him to the big pool - we plan to this weekend though. He loves "swimming" in the tub though and gets some good movement time in there.

Hunter, 6, showing Damien "square"

 Sensory

(Visual) Damien's vision is growing so fast! He can spot me from across a small room now. I recently wrote how he had "graduated" from his simple checkerboard and is now moving onto more sophisticated visual objects. I am in the works to make him many simple picture boards. I didn't do any light reflexes with him this week, I am really bad at being consistent with that. We haven't done "spotting a light" exercises either.

Also for his visual stimulation program we have done some outline "bit" cards. I can already tell that we are going to need to move onto more detailed outline bits and very soon to move onto "detail within a configuration" type pictures.

(Tactile) Damien's Babinski reflex is very strong, and I think that accounts partially for his substantial improvement in crawling. He is very good at digging his toes into the sides and surface of his track and pushing himself, thanks to his many stimulations. His babinski reflexes have been the most consistent simulation.

Sadly we did not do any hot / cold / pressure stimulations for his tactile program yet this week.

(Auditory) I tried using an air horn to stimulate his vital response, only to find that my dollar store air horn does not work (should I really have been surprised?). Next I tried an air horn app on my phone. Far from loud enough. So we have done the blocks to stimulate his startle reflex now and then but still have to go to the store and get another air horn.

All smiles

 Social

Oh, so many smiles! The older he gets, the happier he gets. It is so fun seeing him develop in this area.

(Language) I have been more consistent with our language development program. We have been having many conversations daily, of me talking and giving him the opportunity to "talk" and "answer". I recite our short poem frequently - he lights up for this. He has been developing strongly in this area and his ability to communicate.

 Sleep, Eating, Elimination

(Sleep) Damien is still on a 3-hour schedule, and sleeps for about 5-6 hours straight on most nights. Others he is up every 3 hours. Ugh. I'm sort of working on getting him to sleep longer at nights, but I think I'll have to get him in his own bed, first. (maybe?)

(Eating) There is no news for nursing. He eats, he eats well, he eats quick. Although I think he might have been going through a "growth spurt" because there were a couple of nights that he wanted to eat every 2.5 hours and was somewhat fussy.

(Elimination) Elimination communication still mostly consists of me continuing to help him associate the physical action of having a bowl movement with the sound (words) "poo poo". I haven't been taking him to the potty much, although the two times I did this week, he went without a fuss.

"And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." 

Luke 2:4

Damien was 6 weeks old this week

"Explosive" Brain Growth: Baby's First Month

Damien (at 5 weeks), in the hat that he wore home from the hospital

"From the moment of birth, the rate of growth of the brain is on a descending curve. Each day the brain grows a little less than it did the day before. During the period of greatest growth, the baby is able to take in raw information at a rate that is truly astounding. But this process will be a little bit slower each day." 

Glenn Doman, How Smart is Your Baby?

Brain growth is an inverse property of age, right? The younger you are, the more rapidly your brain is growing.

On the day he turned one month old, I took Damien's measurements. He had gained a whopping two pounds since birth, and grown a full inch. But the most miraculous, I believe, was the growth in his head circumference.

His little brain grew 5 centimeters in his first month.

As an example of what that looks like, compare the picture above of the one below:

Damien at one day old

On a side note, he jumped from being in the 50th percentile (35 cm) for head circumference at birth, to being in the 80th percentile (40 cm) at one month. In short, his brain really is growing at a higher than normal rate.

Incredible, isn't it?

"But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen." 

2 Peter 3:18

Damien is 5 weeks, 1 day old

Damien's Program 3 Weeks Old

June 18-24

2-3 weeks old

It's been another wonderful week getting to know this little joy in our lives.

His enchanting charm continues to distract me from so many other "important" things that I should be doing during the day. I am so ever-presently aware of how fleeting this time is, how quickly he is growing. I'm soaking up every minute. Painting as many mental pictures as I can. Of his tiny features, his sweet baby smell, his curious, serious eyes. The "babymoon" is going by so quickly. I want to savor as much of it as I can.

This week was not too bad, in terms of program consistency. My visions of logs filled with dozens of checks and detailed notes tends to be more of a dream than a reality.

But he is growing, developing, nonetheless. And ever so quickly, at that. Here are the highlights of his development this week:

Holding head at 45 degree angle, 2 weeks old

Motor

• Crawling  Damien's crawling has improved noticeably since he was born.  He still doesn't seem to move his arms much, but his leg movements are so vigorous. He kicks off the sides of his track, and his toes flare out (courtesy of Babinski reflex), giving him good traction. He gets down his track probably at least twice as fast as he did when he first started, although, unfortunately, he still gets pretty frustrated with it in the process most of the time (I still think he just doesn't like the cold surface). 

The trial is often finding the right timing to put him in his track. At certain times of the day, especially his fussy evenings, he will have nothing to do with his track and screams if we put him in it. Other times, he is perfectly content to crawl down it multiple times. I think things will get better as he gets a little older and his fussiness (hopefully) improves. Right now he only averages going down the track about 2-3 times per day, spending perhaps a total of 30 minutes in it. (It only takes him a few minutes to crawl down, but he will often stay in one spot for a while). He spends a lot of time on his tummy at other times, too, not in his track. He still loves to crawl up Daddy's chest.

• Head control  Damien's head control is still good. He can lift his head, at a 45 degree angle, and look around since 1 week old (this is a milestone typically accomplished at 4-8 weeks). He does this a lot when he is laying on our chest and checks everything out, especially our faces. It's hard to get him to lay his head down unless he is sleeping!

Holding Daddy's finger, 3 weeks 1 day old

• Manual  Damien's grasp reflex is still pretty strong. Before I noted that his grasp reflex was stronger in his right hand than it was in his left hand. Well this week it seems to have "switched", and I think that perhaps the possible culprit is that his right hand has moved (or is moving) into the ability to release ("vital release" via developmental profile) while his left hand is still in the grasp reflex stage. The reason? Well, when I lift him as he hangs onto my fingers, his left hand is very tight now (improved!) but his right hand lets go a lot of times. An interesting and exciting development.

I mentioned last week that I have seen what looks like him attempting to use his hands - bringing them to his mouth to suck on them, "hold in" his pacifier, bat at Daddy's face. Well, he did more of this this week, particularly the batting!

• Balance  We still have not really started doing any balance activities yet. (Still no good reason!) He still gets plenty of moving around though, being carried, rocked, moved, etc.

• Language  Damien's language is definitely still at the "birth cry and crying" stage. His cry is strong and loud! He has many different cries, sometimes different tones or strengths, sometimes a whimpering or "whining". We occasionally get to hear other sounds from him, particularly "ahh", "eh", and "mmm". I try to remember that all sounds are language. Whenever he communicates we, of course, talk back! 

I try and have conversations with him but, so far, I get a lot of stares (to be expected from a two-week old, I suppose!) Still, it is fun communicating to him and responding to his needs, and watching his non-verbal communication, too. We try and talk to him a lot and provide an environment free of "noise clutter".

Next week I would like to start the poetry portion of the language program. My perfectionism of having the "perfect poem" has been holding me back.

Sensory

• Tactile  His tactile program has been my most consistent. I like to stimulate his little toes (after every diaper change, sometimes while I'm nursing). Something must be paying off, because like I said, he has been using the Babinski reflex to push off of the sides of his track, making crawling a lot easier.

• Auditory  I will admit that the fact that he doesn't really respond to the sound of the clapping blocks makes me not very motivated to do it (he responds to many other sounds, he just doesn't seem too phased by the blocks). I think this is one of those "I wish somebody would have told me about this part of the Doman program" kind of things. I think that maybe the "correct" thing to do is to keep using the block-clapping sounds even though he doesn't startle, but I don't really know. 

However, it is obvious that he hears just fine. One exciting thing he did this week was turn towards Daddy's voice. I was holding him in my arms and his Daddy came home, stood right next to me and said something. Damien's eyes lit up and he started turning his head, looking around until he found his Dad.

Also, today when we were at a birthday party, during cleanup all the kids started popping the balloons. Damien became upset and started fussing, and calmed down when we left the room. I think that he is moving into stage II of auditory development - "vital response to threatening sounds". 

• Visual  I have not been very consistent doing his light reflex stimulations, I think mainly because I have to get up and go into a dark room to do them and it's not a habit yet. But nonetheless his vision seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. He spends a lot of time daily in front of his black and white checkerboard. I try to keep the blinds open and keep the room very bright. When he's awake, there's usually someone in his face oo-ing and ahh-ing over him and talking to him. He, in turn, spends the whole time serious examining and analyzing said person's face.

There's nothing, I think, more amazing, more phenomenal, than looking into this little boy's eyes. Those precious blue-grey eyes seems to come more alive, more aware, every day. It's priceless.

Social

• Damien has become more of a social nurser. Not at every feeding, but he looks around and often stays awake for the whole time he nurses.

We've caught so many smiles from him lately, both with his eyes open and his eyes closed. The most precious ones are when he is staring at us, deep in thought checking out our faces, and then bursts into a huge, priceless grin. Oh, nothing melts my heart more than those smiles!

Sleeping, Eating, Eliminating

This was the first week that I started trying to implement a schedule with Damien. Sometimes, at this point in time, his schedule is more along the lines of "wishful thinking", but I'm okay with that. Like I said in the previous post, I consider a schedule at this age to be more of a goal to work towards, just gentle structure and guidance that can be adapted or discarded as needed.

• Sleeping  Damien, a lot of nights, has been sleeping a good stretch at nighttime, sometimes 3, 4, or even 5 hours. When he does wake up to nurse, he generally nurses and then falls straight back to sleep, although not always. Sometimes it seems like he wants to use me as a human pacifier and, well, it sort of hampers the whole sleeping thing. 

• Pacifier  We changed to the Nuk pacifier this week, and oh my does this child love it. Hunter would never take a pacifier or a bottle, which made life very difficult sometimes, so for that reason I'm glad we started Damien with the pacifier early. 

• Nursing  Nursing is going well. Damien, as I mentioned, is my little speed nurser. I usually have him nurse for 10 minutes on each side, but sometimes I think he has nearly emptied it at 5 minutes. He's growing well, and thank God, my sore nipples are completely gone. This has certainly made nursing more enjoyable!

• Elimination  The kid still poops all the time. Every time he poops we say, "Poo poo, good poo poo, go poo poo, good boy..." etc. etc. Again, the goal is essentially to get him to associate the word with the action so that, eventually, we can start signaling him to go. Other than that haven't started anything yet, waiting till he can "sit" a little bit better.

Damien was 2 weeks old this week