Look at that big boy! It’s hard to believe that it’s already been more than 4 months since Ryder made his grand entrance into the world. He had his check up at the pediatrician last week. Here’s his stats…weight: 11 pounds, 6 ounces, length: 23 1/8 inches, head circumference: 14 3/4 inches. All three are almost on the growth curve for a normal 4 month old! He still has a ways to go to be “normal” for his age, but at least he’s on the charts now! Some great news for mom and dad is that we can let him go 5 hours between feedings at night now instead of 4. That’s a little more sleep for us! The doctor says we can’t let him sleep through the night and/or as long as he would sleep on his own until he’s well into the normal growth curve for his age (we’re not going to think about how long that could be). The doctor was a little concerned about Ryder’s eyes so we now have a follow up appointment with the opthamologist at the beginning of February. Hopefully he’ll tell us Ryder is just a preemie and his eyes are fine for his adjusted age. We also have another follow up appointment with the neurosurgeon at the beginning of February. At the end of December we had a few neurosurgeon visits as well as a trip to the ER because of some swelling around his shunt that just doesn’t want to go down. The neurosurgeon told us then that he suspects that the shunt is trying to malfunction and that he will probably have to go in and fix it sooner rather than later. Ryder will have another MRI on January 26th and then follow up with the neurosurgeon the following week who will hopefully have some better answers for us when he has a second MRI to compare to December’s scan. We’re praying that the swelling is just an issue of Ryder’s body still adjusting to the “hardware” and that it’s not related to shunt malfunction that would have to be fixed surgically.A big change in our house recently is that Beth Anne went back to work after Christmas. Ryder is still at home during the day. We’re blessed to have a very sweet babysitter, Jamie, who comes to our house every morning to take care of our baby boy while we can’t be there. We’re still trying to figure out how to get everything else done and have two working parents. It’s difficult, but we seem to be slowly getting into a routine. Our definition of normal seems to keep changing dramatically lately!
We’ll leave you with some pictures from Ryder’s first Christmas. He got spoiled beyond measure and he doesn’t even know it!
Not so sure Ryder was loving a white Christmas Eve
Doesn't he look excited to be opening his presents?!
Just hanging out with some of his new toys
I think he might have actually been a little interested in this one!
All that hard work wore him out 
