"I haven't had a medicino check-up in ages."
Abbie is 15-months-old, and that means two things: Time for her 15-month check-up. It also means an increase in whining as she gains a better understanding of what she wants without being able to communicate it, but I prefer not to think about that since I can actually do something about her 15-month check-up.
I enjoy taking her to check-ups because they’re a chance to validate my parenting skills. When her size and weight are right on target, it means I’m feeding her the right amounts of the right foods. When she shows off her top-notch walking abilities, it means I’m doing all the right things in encouraging her motor skills development. Even when she fails to do something important like talk, it’s okay because all children develop at their own pace. It’s like being back in kindergarten where everything is praiseworthy, and I can do no wrong as long as I stay away from the obvious stuff like flinging finger-paints at the walls. Of course I’m likely setting myself up for a crushing disappointment by deriving my self-worth through Abbie’s achievements, but I’ll worry about that when her grade school soccer team is shut out.
The first order of business was to measure Abbie’s height and weight. Measuring her height involves laying her on the examination table, stretching her out, using a pencil to mark the bottom of her feet on the protective paper lining the table, making another mark at the top of her head, and finally measuring the distance between the marks as her height. This process is usually repeated after the initial measurement reveals that her squirming moved the marks producing a completely ridiculous result like 159 inches tall when obviously 159 inches is the highest point that daddy can leave an object that Abbie can still manage to grab and put in her mouth. The nurse measured her at 31 inches on the first try, and that sounds reasonable enough to write down.
Next came the weighing. When she was still too young to effectively fidget, weighing her involved setting her in a container on top of a scale to measure her weight down to the tenth of an ounce, like what we might do with small livestock or very tiny semi-trailers. Now that she’s a big girl, or at least big enough to stand, weighing her involves having her stand on a normal person scale. She weighed in at 24 pounds. It would have been closer to 25 pounds, but we stripped her naked removing even her diaper right before they took her weight. Naturally Abbie proceeded to pee all over the scale once we removed her diaper, possibly because she wanted to drop that last ounce of water weight.
When the doctor saw her, he asked if we had any concerns. I figured I’d start with the easy one and ask if there was any problem with her only having six teeth, the same number she’d been stuck on for about four months. He said not to worry, that every child develops at her own pace, and she’ll start walking when she’s ready…wait, did we say we were worried about teeth coming in too slow? Find something important to worry about for crying out loud.
Then we sprung the big issue on him, the part about her not talking. This is an area where Ellie and I have disagreements; Ellie says she can say “more,” “mama,” and gesture for “up,” and that she points at things; I say she just whines and grabs at things a lot. The doctor listened to our concerns, verified that she at least appears to hear well, and told us not to worry, that every child develops at her own pace, and she’ll start talking when she’s ready. He also offered some suggestions to encourage her to talk like asking her questions especially while reading, and since none of them involve reducing my time spent blogging I’ll give them a shot.
Speaking of shot, Abbie got one during her check-up. Her first set of vaccinations threw her for a loop for about a week, but since then she’s recovered from them pretty quickly. This time was no exception as we gave her some pain reliever and quickly forgot that she had a shot. Of course she screamed her head off when poked by the needle, which was a little distressing. On the bright side, her screaming gave us a chance to look in her mouth and discover that a new top tooth had recently broken through the gum line, so there goes one concern.
I enjoy taking her to check-ups because they’re a chance to validate my parenting skills. When her size and weight are right on target, it means I’m feeding her the right amounts of the right foods. When she shows off her top-notch walking abilities, it means I’m doing all the right things in encouraging her motor skills development. Even when she fails to do something important like talk, it’s okay because all children develop at their own pace. It’s like being back in kindergarten where everything is praiseworthy, and I can do no wrong as long as I stay away from the obvious stuff like flinging finger-paints at the walls. Of course I’m likely setting myself up for a crushing disappointment by deriving my self-worth through Abbie’s achievements, but I’ll worry about that when her grade school soccer team is shut out.
The first order of business was to measure Abbie’s height and weight. Measuring her height involves laying her on the examination table, stretching her out, using a pencil to mark the bottom of her feet on the protective paper lining the table, making another mark at the top of her head, and finally measuring the distance between the marks as her height. This process is usually repeated after the initial measurement reveals that her squirming moved the marks producing a completely ridiculous result like 159 inches tall when obviously 159 inches is the highest point that daddy can leave an object that Abbie can still manage to grab and put in her mouth. The nurse measured her at 31 inches on the first try, and that sounds reasonable enough to write down.
Next came the weighing. When she was still too young to effectively fidget, weighing her involved setting her in a container on top of a scale to measure her weight down to the tenth of an ounce, like what we might do with small livestock or very tiny semi-trailers. Now that she’s a big girl, or at least big enough to stand, weighing her involves having her stand on a normal person scale. She weighed in at 24 pounds. It would have been closer to 25 pounds, but we stripped her naked removing even her diaper right before they took her weight. Naturally Abbie proceeded to pee all over the scale once we removed her diaper, possibly because she wanted to drop that last ounce of water weight.
When the doctor saw her, he asked if we had any concerns. I figured I’d start with the easy one and ask if there was any problem with her only having six teeth, the same number she’d been stuck on for about four months. He said not to worry, that every child develops at her own pace, and she’ll start walking when she’s ready…wait, did we say we were worried about teeth coming in too slow? Find something important to worry about for crying out loud.
Then we sprung the big issue on him, the part about her not talking. This is an area where Ellie and I have disagreements; Ellie says she can say “more,” “mama,” and gesture for “up,” and that she points at things; I say she just whines and grabs at things a lot. The doctor listened to our concerns, verified that she at least appears to hear well, and told us not to worry, that every child develops at her own pace, and she’ll start talking when she’s ready. He also offered some suggestions to encourage her to talk like asking her questions especially while reading, and since none of them involve reducing my time spent blogging I’ll give them a shot.
Speaking of shot, Abbie got one during her check-up. Her first set of vaccinations threw her for a loop for about a week, but since then she’s recovered from them pretty quickly. This time was no exception as we gave her some pain reliever and quickly forgot that she had a shot. Of course she screamed her head off when poked by the needle, which was a little distressing. On the bright side, her screaming gave us a chance to look in her mouth and discover that a new top tooth had recently broken through the gum line, so there goes one concern.
posted by Matt at
9:42 PM
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