Chunky Little Monkey

My son has really started to pack on the pounds. Since coming off the I.V. his appetite has come back in full force. Now, he did not gain too much weight when he first came off the I.V. but last night he shocked us all when he gained two and a half ounces. Parker is just under 11 and 3/4 pounds now, which according to my weight chart places him just over the 10th percentile. I know we have a dietician assigned to us but this is one aspect of Parker's health that I feel more than capable at regulating. Parker is playing catch up to the 25th percentile (birth percentile) and I have been monitoring how quickly he has been doing it on my chart (the same one as the hospital). Recall that Parker is on increased calories (concentrated formula) due to his overactive metabolism that is caused by the ADA deficiency. If my wife and I feel he is gaining weight too quickly we will discuss it with his team. For now, we are very happy with his weight gain.

During my wife's and my time with Parker yesterday we noticed him trying to crawl again. The little monkey really thinks he has somewhere to go. The isolation room that Parker is in is not extremely spacious. We have quite a few different activities in the room for him to do, but we currently do not have the space to let him learn how to crawl. I know this is something that babies do not normally do at 3 months of age but I am sure we all agree that Parker is not a normal baby. Yes, we work with Parker on specific things each day that we feel are important for his development but if Parker wants to try something new like crawling, I am going to find a way to let him try.

I again want to thank all the new visitors who have visited Parker's site over the past few days. In the last 48 hours we have had 584 new visitors to the site and a total of 1350 hits. I never thought that this site would gather so much attention. It is so important that we get the word out about Severe Combined Immunodeficiency. So please let your family and friends know about this site and come back often to see how Parker is doing with his battle against adenosine deaminase deficiency. And remember to vote for Parker as the cutest baby on babiesonline for April.