Puffy Eyes and Chunky Thighs

Saturday night, Colin decided to take on water - like a boat with a hole in it's hull. At one point, his lower right eyelid looked like it was a bubble about to pop. Mom, in her wonderful way, immediately assumed the worst. I can't blame her since it looked ugly. But apparently preemies take on fluid like this on occasion. Just another example of his overall systems being immature. It made his thighs nice and fat though, which made us just want to grab all that chunk and squeeze - too cute! Well, through the night his kidneys worked overtime to expel all the extra fluid he was taking on. Literally, he pissed the night away. Can I say that? ;-) By the morning, most of his edema was resolved. Another step in this learning process for mom and dad.
After that little scare Saturday night, Colin decided to give us the day off and not worry us at all. He had a great day on Sunday! First, he had very few episodes of bradys and desats which made us feel good. So good, in fact, that we decided to Kangaroo! This time was super-special though: he had earned a "room-air" trial, meaning he got to Kangaroo without his bubble CPAP! Without it, he was able to snuggle his face to mommies chest. It was so adorable, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face! And then something shocking happened: Colin apparently wasn't happy laying with the right side of his face against mommy, so after a couple of little baby-coos, he turned his head over to lay on the left side of his face! I thought I was seeing things! But literally, he had the strength to do it on his own! And as if that wasn't impressive enough, about 10 minutes later, he lifted his head off her chest, about 1-inch, held it for a couple seconds, then repositioned again! I guess since his melon is proportional in size to his body, it's not yet so big and heavy that he is not able to move it around. I still say it's impressive for a not-quite-31-weeker.
There was a moment during Kangaroo that really touched my heart. Colin has a tendency to "crimp" his IV line by bending his arm which causes a little alarm to go off that indicates there is too much pressure in the line and it needs to be repositioned. Well, it went off a couple of times during Kangaroo, so his nurse decided to prop his arm up on a tiny rolled towel for support. The problem was, according to Colin, was that he could no longer feel his mommies skin with his right hand. He started fussing a bit, and had the strength to reposition his arm off the prop and back onto his mommies chest. As soon as he felt mom again, the fussing stopped. It was so precious! Let's just say our little guy knows what he wants :-)