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For The Record: Volume 3, Issue 3, Number 3
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March 15, 1999
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So Katie is now 28 and 1/4 inches tall and weighs 22 pounds and 3 ozs. That makes her at 50% height (right on target) and 80% weight! Oops! She is one pudgy muffin baby! (But adorable!) The doctor said that since she is a breast fed baby not to worry about her weight gain, but given my struggles with my weight of course I worry. What the Doc. said was that she gets all the nutrition see needs in the first 5 minutes at each breast, and after that she's just using me as a human pacifier - and that hind-milk is VERY high in fat. So, that's another parenting failure. Even though they say it's no big deal. . . Ack! Everything is a big deal! But then part of me thinks - I'm doing what nature intended and feeding her on demand; how dare some doctor interfere with my relationship with my child.
Finally, they did some blood work and it came back that Katie is borderline anemic. What?! This enormous, breastfed, chunky baby is borderline anemic? How can this be possible? Since Katie chooses b'milk over eating, she apparently isn't getting enough iron. Again, she's not actually anemic, but on the low side. So I'm going to try to get her to eat more "real" food, and also give her vitamins with iron.
Anyway, my vision of myself as the Be-All, End-All parent has taken a beating. But Damn, anemic, fat and all, Katie is one stop-traffic adorable child!
She's also just on the verge of crawling. She gets up on her haunches and rocks, but still moves backwards. Actually, she's such a totally laid back baby that it doesn't seem to bother her to much to move away from her target instead of toward it. Standing is another story. She's outright stubborn about wanting to stand and not hold onto anything - which doesn't work, of course. I'll pull her up, with her holding onto my fingers. Well, she soon takes it into that perfect head that she doesn’t want to hold my hand, and then she'll let go with one hand, teetering precariously from the other one. Or if I lean her up against my legs she'll let go with both hands -- until she falls flat on her face. Not being able to stand seems to annoy her greatly.
JD's life: JD is still having a bit of trouble adjusting to Katie's place in the household. Which is weird because this has never been a problem before. Just since Christmas. He's still a great little kid, and we don’t have much problems getting him to take his naps, or go to bed. But he is still very possessive of John. And he wants to be carried all the time now, and also eat baby food. (Ewwwww!) This from the kid that was walking at 11 months and would rather run into the street that have me hug him. Now he needs to be carried and such. So we’re trying to give him extra attention and hug him as often as we hug Katie.
Something special that JD and John now do is play on the computer. We got JD this special toddler computer "game" which basically teaches him how to move the house and click on things. He just loves it. There are numbers and ABC's to learn, and animals where you click on things and they talk to you. And, since it's computer related, John doesn't mind sitting there for ages playing w/ him.
JD has begun to play by himself without any parent interaction. He has also just recently begun the imagination play. His three favorite toys are this large farm thing with lots of animals, his legos, and a large garage with matchbox cars. Actually, the animals and the matchbox cars are used interchangeably. So half the time the animals are parked and going down the ramps, wile the cars are placed in the corn silo. Anyway, I'll discreetly watch him, and he'll have his little plastic Barney and Baby Bop "talking" to each other. And he'll have elaborate designs with the legos and then have one of the plastic farm animals nock it down and then say, "Oh no! Pig did it!" And then he laughs uproariously! (Toddler humor is an acquired taste)
So, that's the kids update. More after my trip to Cincinnati at Easter!
Pride goeth before a fall: Well, things have been a bit tough in the kid department these last few weeks! First there was that whole fiasco with JD in the end of February. Well, on Thursday (the 11th) I had this massive headache and I was barely functioning. So (and I still don't know how this happened) I took the food tray off Katie's high chair, and then I unclipped her from her restraints . . . and then I forgot to pick her up?! I instead went to help JD turn on the water so he could "wash dishes". Needless to say about 30 seconds later Katie fell face first out of the high chair and onto the linoleum floor. My god, my heart about stopped when I saw (heard that sickening thud!) her sprawled on the floor! I'm thinking, how can this be happening to me, what is happening to my ability to parent! Right away she got this big pulsating bruise on her forehead, about as big as the bottom of a bottle. So I called the doctor (with visions of head trauma) only to find out that Katie had a doctor appointment in 20 minutes, which I was unaware of! Long story short, Katie is totally fine, except that she still has a light brown residual from that killer bruise.