2yo checkup

We had a very rough July, beginning with each of us taking a turn being the sickest we've been in many years (which for Benjamin means the sickest he's ever been, period) (and, I just learned, the sickest Nathalie has ever been, too) as we passed a bug from mother to son to father and on to the neighbors ...

And once we were all healthy again, we could focus on the fact that our beloved Lutèce was not.

There was some other awfulness, too, which I won't burden you with, but the upshot is that all of that is now behind us, and we marked that improvement with a very positive pediatric checkup.

After examining Benjamin, Dr. W told him, "You're perfect."

He is. He's also

• 36.5 " tall
• 27 lb 6 oz

and still 50th percentile for weight and 90th for height, as he has been for most of his 2 years.

The nurse measured him at 37 inches long, lying down, but when Nathalie was out-loud shocked by that number, the nurse measured again and said, "Well, maybe 36 and a half..."

Nathalie said, "I guess he was tall enough to ride that merry-go-round after all." She'll have to explain to you what she was referring to. I didn't ask. (I laughed, but I didn't seek details.)

In addition to Benjamin being tall and lean and healthy, he also didn't cry (!)* at his one vaccine shot, said goodbye to doctor and nurse (although it was to the nurse that he said, "Goodbye Dr Wisman"), and told his mother the next day that he wanted to go back to see the doctor again.

There are other big changes coming up, but I'll let Nathalie blog about those — and I'll pressure her to put up some of the great photos of the boy that are still sitting on her digital camera.

- proud papa

* I keep a copy of the "Le Papa Pingouin" French music video on my iPhone for "emergencies" when we're out and Benjamin needs extreme distraction. It succeeded in distracting him before, not-quite-during, and immediately after his shot. I highly recommend this newly discovered strategy.

18mo checkup

Benjamin was having a grand old time at the doctor's this morning, playing with everything, exploring everything. Then the doctor came in and Benjamin started to worry. Worry turned to tears, and he cried throughout the exam. We don't understand this, since it's never the doctor who gives the shots, and Benjamin had been perfectly happy and friendly with the nurse, who does, in fact, stick in the needles.

He's been a real mama's boy recently — only in the sense of clearly preferring his maman to his papa — but in the exam room, you would have thought Papa was his favorite thing in the world: security blanket, protector, everything. He's never hung on so tight. The doctor even asked if he was going through a father-preference phase, because we couldn't get him to walk from father to mother, only from mother to father. But no, he's not in a papa phase — not unless a phase can be only 30 minutes long.

Anyway, the boy is still 90th percentile for height and dead-on average for weight and skull.

Height: 33½"

Weight: 25 lb 10 oz

Skull: 19¼"

- papa

15mo checkup

Height: 32¼ in (90th percentile)

Weight: 23 lb 12 oz (50th percentile)

No surprises. Healthy boy. Two shots.

Doctor W says Benjamin has a 2-year-old's vocabulary but not yet a 2-year-old's linguistic development, because he's only starting to combine words. He said a 15-month-old usually has a vocabulary of 5–10 words, so he was impressed that Benjamin has 60-something words and 20-something signs. He said linguistic development was the only sort of early development that correlated to intelligence. He seemed somewhat surprised that the bilingual household wasn't slowing him down. We, of course, think it's speeding him up.

- papa

1-year checkup

We just got back from the pediatrician.

Benjamin is still 50th percentile for weight and 90th for height.

Height:	31¾ in
Weight:	21 lb 9 oz
Head:	18½ in

Doctor W said that by 18th months old, a normal baby has 5 words other than mama and dada. We said Benjamin had more than that already, plus a bunch of signs. He asked if Benjamin is starting to throw little tantrums, and Nathalie said that he'd just started to do so and that he's begun to test all limits. The doctor said that 12 months was early for that behavior, but that it made sense given Benjamin's advanced verbal development. (And I had the definite impression he didn't quite grasp how advanced Benjamin is, even though he was signing and saying words with me while Nathalie and the doctor talked.)

- papa

Benjamin's stats at 9 months

Benjamin had his nine-month doctor's appointment today. It was less traumatic than the last two, though he did get upset when he saw the needle coming toward his fat little thigh. I was rather proud of how he acted while the nurse was drawing blood from his finger: she held his hand tightly and his papa held him tightly, but Benjamin seemed mostly fascinated by his blood as it streamed into the tiny tube the nurse held against his finger.

At nine months Benjamin is 29.5 inches long (still 90th percentile), he weighs 19 lbs and 11 oz (50th percentile), and he has a head circumference of 18 inches (50th percentile).

When the doctor saw him twisting and struggling when put on his back, he predicted that Benjamin would walk before his first birthday. He claims that this sort of struggle -- it has become incrediblly difficult to keep Benjamin on his back to change his diaper -- usually doesn't happen until a baby is about 12 months old.

first checkup

Benjamin at 1 week


Asleep on the exam table


Home from doc's.

Today Benjamin is 7 pounds 12 ounces, and the doctor is very pleased with his weight gain, which means nursing is going well and we're allowed to let him sleep until he's hungry. (More rest for maman!)

7-12 puts him 2 ounces shy of his birth weight. On Sunday, the nurse weighed him at 7 pounds 7 ounces, so that's 5 ounces gained in 4 days -- or possibly only 1 ounce per day since he peed 3 times (!) while we were in the exam room and easily gave up an ounce.

Fortunately, maman was smart enough to have packed plenty of diapers. Papa would probably have brought only 1. Maman loves the diaper bag we got at Babies R Us with a gift certificate from little George's mom and dad.

The kind of mundane detail that I now get excited about is that we're allowed to use a pacifier. I'd already been resorting to one when Benjamin would be otherwise inconsolable, but maman was concerned about nipple confusion and the general warning not to use pacifiers until nursing is going well. Nursing is apparently going quite well, so we may pacify without worry. For now.