Another big day

Nathaniel went to visit the pediatric cardiologist again today. Not surprisingly, Amanda and I were nervous leading up to it.

We worried: Nathaniel is a good 50 percent heavier than he was at birth, so the doctors will really get a chance to look at how his heart is healing. What if it's not going right? What if they need to take him back to the hospital?

But the whole thing turned into a breeze. Amanda took Nathaniel by herself, because our first cardiologist visit was 2 hours long, and I had to get to work. This visit, however, was maybe 1 hour, and the doctor saw no need for the EKG and the echocardiogram and all that other fun stuff. Instead, the doc listened to Nathaniel's heart with a stethoscope and said it sounded like the blood was pumping happily ... no hint of flow being hindered by malformed arteries or anything like that.

What great news!

Also, we're past the last thing he wasn't allowed to do anymore. He's eight weeks old today, and we weren't ever really allowed to put Nathaniel on his tummy yet because of the added strain on his chest and heart. We were worried this might be slowing some of his development.

But the doctor said we're passed that now. We should go ahead and put him on his stomach for short periods every day.

I admit, we'd been trying "tummy time" for very short periods (less than one minute) for the past week or so, and it hasn't been going great. Instead of trying to lift his head, he's been drooling, then happily sucking the liquid out of whatever he drooled on.

That's our son.