Famous Preemies

Ok, so I'm taking a different route here with this post. A friend let me borrow this Preemie book when my babies were born. It was really helpful and interesting. I'm just now making it all the way through it (it's big) and the last section was very cool. It's called "I was a Preemie, Too" and it is info about famous people who were born premature. So, sit back and enjoy (or be bored by) these tid bits. Maybe it will help you in some random trivia game someday. I will shorten them and I won't do them all.

Mark Twain -Born 2 months premature in 1835, he didn't appear fit to grow up. "A lady came in one day," his mother wrote later, "and said, 'You don't expect to raise that babe do you.' I said I would try..."

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)-he said "I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he thought about as a child. But my intellectual development was slower, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had grown up."

Willie Shoemaker (1931- )-Famous American jockey. Shoemaker was born too early and too small, but he didn't grow much afterward, either. In his 42 year career, he's won 11 Triple Crown horse races and earned more than $123 million is prize money. It is said that his grandmother put him in a shoebox next to an oven to keep him alive the night he was born.

Stevie Wonder-Wonder was among thousands of preemies, who in the 40s and 50s were blinded by ROP (retinopothy of prematurity)...[kanyon had ROP, but now they have surgery to prevent blindess].

Patrick Bouvier Kennedy (1963)- The 3rd child of Jaqueline and John F. Kennedy was born at 34 weeks and died only 2 days later of RDS (respiratory distress syndrome), one of the most common complications of prematurity [both of ours had it]. The loss of the first family's baby deeply moved the nation and led to an outpouring of public and private resources for research and special newborn care units. Thanks to that support and the new treatments that followed, the lives of today's 34 weekers are not at risk for RDS.

The following list is "alleged preemies": Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Darwin, Victor Hugo, Richard Simmons, and Michael J. Fox.

Ok now for a few pictures of my favorite preemie since you sat through all of that.



big boy in his exersaucer. I think it has officially gone from a torture chamber/therapy tool to a toy that he enjoys!


We went over to my Aunt and Uncle's house Sun. night and had a great time. Kanyon hung out with Uncle Steve like this for a long time.
Of course once Aunt Mary Lynn fed everyone, she took her turn with Kan.
We might have to move to Vegas so that Kanyon can pursue his Elvis career. He has started making the weirdest faces. He's getting 2 new teeth and I think he's trying to grind them (oh goody), but I'm not sure. Whatever it is is pretty funny.




Thank ya-thank ya very much.