getting you up to speed with gabriel

So I had a baby a few months ago. Almost seven (seven!) months ago. His name is Gabriel, and he is my greatest joy.

Developmentally, I think he's doing pretty well. His 6-month checkup was an eye-opener for me, though. Brian and I more or less separated when I was 8 months pregnant, so I spent the final weeks of my pregnancy and then all the months following just trying not to fall apart. I didn't read the infancy books, I don't know the list of foods he's supposed to be avoiding for a year or two years, and I had no idea what milestones I should have been looking for. So when the pediatrician was asking about how he handles small objects and what he does in front of a mirror, I had nothing to say. Small objects? Isn't that a choking hazard? And why would he be in front of a mirror?

So, the pediatrician, who is awesome by the way and everybody in Denver should go see her (Dr. Emily), gave me a run-down of what to look for and suggested that I do some stuff. I also picked up the What To Expect book for the first year (good golly, I hate the What To Expect books! Information OVERLOAD!) and have been paging through that. He seems to be doing just fine, though!

Now for some stats and some real info:

He clocked in (three weeks ago) at 18lbs, 11oz, putting him at the 75th percentile. This is pretty consistent for him - he's been 75th-90th percentile since his 20-week ultrasound. He's also 75th for length (I think he was over 27inches) and 60th for head circumference. As big as this boy is, he is not yet a member of the Giant Head Club. He IS my son, though, so maybe he'll still get the giant head at some point.

He's been close to rolling over for something like 3 months now, but he hasn't actually rolled himself all the way from front to back or back to front until the past couple of weeks. This child hates being face-down. HATES it. He is nowhere near creeping, and I actually wouldn't be surprised if he skips formal crawling and goes straight into walking. He was sitting up at 5 months, which I think is a month or 6 weeks earlier than average. He's very strong, but he's a little awkward and uncoordinated, even for a 6-month-old. That's probably my fault for not making him do tummy time. But hey, I've been doing the best I can in some difficult circumstances, and if he's a late crawler as a result, then he's a late crawler with a mom who managed to survive something she thought would crush her. He will reach for things, and reach pretty far if he's sitting up, but it hasn't yet occurred to him that he can use these arms and legs to do helpful things like prop himself up.

So because of his seeming lack of body awareness, I'm working with him pretty deliberately. I try to get him to roll over with more consistency and ease, which I hope will lead to a better awareness of his own strength. I'm also putting him on his tummy more (we kind of took a month and a half off) so that he can get used to using his arms and not just his hands, and maybe eventually his legs will get involved, too.

Speaking of hands, I didn't really know to look for hand-to-hand transfer, but now that I'm aware of it, I'm noticing it all the time. I'm pretty sure this is one of those skills that he mastered a while ago. Whenever it happened, he is now a champ at passing things from one hand to the other.



I go back and forth on posting photos of him here. I know that would be nice for folks wanting to see him, but I feel icky about posting photos of my baby on the internet. I think it's a privacy hangup of mine. So I'm working through that. In the meantime, updates will be in word form only, and photos will continue to go out through email.