BOY GENIUS

I'm pretty sure Will is a genius. Of course there has been no official testing done, but I swear he's not acting like a 37 weeker. I "thought" at this point he would be sleeping nonstop, rarely have an awake period and definitely be doing nothing more than just laying there like limp celery. This is what the books led me to believe, but this is not the case. Yes, he does sleep quite a bit, but he's also having the random periods of wakefulness that they claim usually start a few weeks after bringing home a full-term baby. Last night we laid him on the island in our kitchen (yes, we understand the risks of having him there...........however those risks do not outweigh the risks of having him within reach of Lili...HA!) on one of those playmats. He stared at the dangling bugs for almost an hour and was consistently reaching out and swatting at the octopus. The 1st time I saw him do this I thought it was an accident...the 2nd time I thought he was just really good at accidentally swatting the octopus...the 3rd time I decided to stand there and watch him for awhile.......this is when I realized that he wasn't stopping and appeared to know exactly what he was doing. Call me crazy, but his eyes told me he knew so much more than I was giving him credit for! This is probably one of the worst parts about having a preterm baby because they seem to be even more unpredictable than your typical newborn. I know that all of the books out there are just for reference and every baby is different, however with a preemie, even the reference books become worthless because the timing is all screwed up! Lili was only 5 weeks early and I remember the 1st 12 months being really hard because if she was going through a fussy period, we couldn't even take an educated guess as to what the problem might be. I would pull out my trusty "Baby's 1st Year" books and try to determine if it was teething...or colic...or acid reflux...or a growth spurt........but I never knew how to calculate her age. Most books said that you should count from the ESTIMATED due date, not the ACTUAL due date when dealing with a preemie, however they almost always followed that by stating that even preemies can catch up quicker than expected and sometimes the ACTUAL due date is more accurate. I find this extremely frustrating!!! Why? Because I obviously stress out about the unknown and don't do well with surprises. I know, I know...parenthood is full of surprises and just when you think you have it all down pat, something changes........but I can still HOPE for things to be predictable, can't I? In the meantime I suppose I will just have to deal with the stress and anxiety that I feel in the pit of my stomach every day as I try to figure out this baby and what might be going on in his little body!