Margo and Solomon had their 18 month and 4 year Well Baby check-up today. For some reason this always feels a little like a final exam to me. It's sort of the big check on how I'm doing as a parent, at least for all their physical needs. So how did I score?
Dr. MaryAnn is not happy with Margo's weight gain. So, I think I get a C in this area. I need to work on fattening her up. Okay, so there are some things I could probably change. First of all she infrequently drinks milk (cow, soy, rice) except for breastmilk which she drinks regularly. I suppose I could be buying whole milk for Margo and offering it to her more reguarly, right now I usually wait until she asks and that's not every day. I've been buying a gallon of 2% for both kids and Margo probably needs the fat of whole milk. She does get whole fat yogurt and cheese, etc...
So how much does she weigh you ask? Just shy of 22# or 15th percentile for her age. But I don't think it's so much her weight as it is the lack of weight gain, she was 20.8# at 12 months and 21.9# at 15 months. So she hasn't gained very much. Once again Dr. MaryAnn is also not happy with iron stores. Again, bad Mama admits to being lazy with supplementation. Okay, in my defense it's a pain in the butt. They both hate it and refuse to drink it down even in juice (which they rarely ever drink). I guess I need to find some crazy sweet juice and keep it around for iron administration and some how keep Dada and Uncle Chris from drinking it. See what I mean, it's a big pain. And then there's the whole calcium interfering with iron absorbtion deal, so do I give it to them if they've just had a cheese sandwich, do I try to wait until they haven't had any dairy? Again, a big pain. I know, I know Dr. MaryAnn, neurotransmitter food, I know... I will try harder. So probably a big 'ol C in this area.
Margo is 31.75inches or 48th percentile for height, not awful and her head is a whooping 89th percentile. She's quite obviously intelligent. Something most people can tell from spending 2 minutes with her, so brain development is on track. So I would give myself an A for the rest.
Dr. M agreed with me about possible allergies for Margo and ordered a skin panel. Which she warned me takes like 2 hours, so bring lots of stuff to entertain. It will be interesting to see what they come up with and hopefully we can get some of the rashes to go away.
Solomon once again is topping the charts, no surprise here. He is 45#, 94th for weight and 44 inches, 97th for height. In other words, average height and weight for a 5 year old. His hearing and eye sight tested out great. So he does just have selective hearing... She said that he actually picked up the bonus sound, which is really, really quiet. His eye-sight is 20/30. So, I'll give myself an A for Solomon all around. She did write referrals for a specialist for his gait. She had him do some walking for her and he was pretty clumsy trying to get feet toe to heel. Jon says it's totally unnecessary and I'm just looking for trouble. But this is from a man who was pooping blood for like a year before he went into a Dr. I also got a referral for a speech therapist for the heck of it. I dont' think it can hurt to have these things checked out by professionals, they can at least ease my mind. I guess the speech therapy thing in our community is not great, some place shut down, so it can take awhile to get in, so we'll have an appointment and get in eventually. It can't hurt.
So, overall I probablly average out to a B parent, which sounds about right.
I took the kids to.... McDonald's for their reward. Did I mention how totally cute and brave they were for their shots, Margo didn't even cry.
Yeah, I know McDonald's. Solomon and I went out this weekend to spend some time together and he's been asking me to take him to McDonald's because he's noticed the play structures. So I figured it should be his choice and finally broke down. Turns out they sell Tillamok ice-cream and the play structure was pretty nice and clean. All in all not a bad way to spend an hour or so on a rainy afternoon, if you can stay away from french fries and soda, which we did.
So I took them both there for ice-cream today for being such good sports about the well-baby appointment.
Ahhh, so that's over with for now; Margo doesn't have another until she's two and Solomon is on once a year now!
My funny, neurotic cat Zilpah had kitty surgery the other day. She had a mystery lump on her back, so it's being checked out for cancer.
I wasn't expecting her surgery scar to be so enormous. She's got this huge nasty gash on her back. Poor funny little cat. Of course she's totally freaked out and she's hiding more than she normally does. I have the extreme pleasure of tormenting her even more twice a day by trapping her and holding her down to give her medication. Oh the joys of pet ownership.
Ishmael has been unusally pukey lately. The other night I nearly got out of bed and threw out all the damn cat food. All this stuff lately with the cat food and his puking has me a little reaked out . But as Jon reminded me, he's always been a pukey cat, just a little more so lately. He probably has a big 'ol hair ball. I need to get him some medicine. I still would like to find something a little less mass produced for the cats but I'm kind of stuck. I was feeding him expensive specialty food and he got those calcium oxylate crystals in his urine. Since it's been under control for so long I'm hesitant to switch his food at all. I don't know what to do.
Ishmael's 11th Birthday is next week! What an old man.
Zilpah will be 10 in May.
Better go, I've been ignoring the children for too long.
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