Appointment Update

Okay, so we had a good appointment with the doctor this morning. The Bug weighs 14lbs. 14oz., is 25 inches long, and her head circumference is 17in. She is growing well and is in great health. Everything has gone so much faster this time that 6 months really snuck up on me and I haven't gotten her started AT ALL on solid foods yet! We have bought the rice cereal, though, and I've just washed and sterilized the breast pumps, so tonight The Bug should have her first experience with solids. Should be fun! :o)

Developmentally, The Bug is sitting up very well despite still not mastering rolling over. Now that she can sit, she just doesn't care about the rolling. I wish she would master that, though, so I could worry less about her when she's playing and sleeping on her back. Yes, I'm usually right there, but sometimes I'm in the bathroom or something and when she rolls from her back to her tummy, she's stuck. She can hold her head up well and play that way, but she eventually gets tired, and sometimes I come back to find her just laying on her tummy with her head down, looking to one side... it's kind of sad looking, though she's perfectly fine. But I'd just rather that she knew how to roll well. I imagine that will come with time.

She is also jabbering more. A couple weeks ago she started making "ba ba ba" noises, and now that's her favorite thing to yell. With a big grin on her face. hee hee!

As for her eyes, they may stay blue... Sweet Pea's are super dark brown right now and they started going dark-dark pretty early, like maybe when she was 2 or 3 months old. Around the same age, The Bug's eyes lightened, which makes me think they're going to stay blue. But, we shall see. Time will tell. They are totally gorgeous right now so I not-so-secretly hope that they stay blue. Especially since I never dreamed that I had a recessive blue gene and could have a blue-eyed child!

The Bug did get 4 shots today, but she is FINE! I wonder if the discomfort/crankiness will kick in later today, or tomorrow. The first time she got shots she was miserable for the entire rest of the day. The second time, she was pretty much fine. But we had given her Infant Tylenol before she got the shots. This time, I had the Tylenol bottle in my back pocket when I brought the girls downstairs this morning, but it dropped out in the kitchen when I sat down to nurse and I forgot to pick it up, and they didn't have any at the doctor's office. So we went without it, and even so, she's fine! She cried while she got the shots, of course, but once they were done she calmed down easily, then she nursed, and on the way out of the office she gave the doctor a huge happy smile. He's not the one who gave her the shots, of course, but still - you'd think she'd be a bit cranky in general. ha ha! YAY. I still haven't given her any Tylenol and think I'll just wait and see what happens. There's no point in giving her medicine that she doesn't need.

I also told the doctor about Sweet Pea's leg hurting last week and her fall and syncope episode yesterday. He said he had talked with the pediatric neurologist after that appointment in May, that the neurologist hadn't found anything neurologically wrong, and that he agrees with the neurologist that she has some kind of syncope. I told him that I'm starting to get all worried that she's not going to outgrow it and he said, in his friendly and down-t0-earth kind of way, "well, if she doesn't, there's really nothing you can do about it." Ha ha! So true. Sometimes we need a reminder... He said that he has had full-grown adults who pass out at the mere mention of the word "blood," and others who respond that way to other stimulus. "Some of us are just wired differently," he said, and that's how it is. Hopefully she will outgrow this by age 5, but the similar occurrence that happened to Slipshod happened in his teens, and his mom had something similar to Sweet Pea's condition well into her 20s. Bleh.

Anyway, he checked her legs and watched her walk and said everything seems fine there. Then he told us about one of his daughters having a similar thing happen and that it came and went twice, and seems to have gone away for good now. Our doctor is not a whole lot older than we are and his two daughters are only about 4-5 years older than ours, so it's nice that we relate to each other as parents (of two girls, even) as well as doctor-patient.

We totally love our doctor and his staff but determined on the drive down today that we really need to find a local pediatrician and/or family practitioner. As much as we don't want to leave them, the drive is just way too long. Today we left an hour early, which should have gotten us there 15 minutes early or at least allowed for problems on the way, but we drove past not one, but two, traffic accidents on the freeway, and arrived late. It's just too far away now. We had wanted to stay with them even while we live up here because we know we will be moving back to the South Bay sometime during the next 5 years or so, and we don't want to lose a doctor we like so well - but this is just kind of crazy, what we're doing. I told the doctor that one of my concerns it that when we move back down, he might not be accepting patients and we wouldn't be able to get back in to see him. He said, "oh, no. That won't be a problem." So, that's nice to know. Makes me feel better to know that even if we can't see them for a few years, we'll still be able to go back when we move back to that area.