Wednesday, March 11, 2009

He's Onto Us: 9 Month Appointment

That last Synagis shot did it. He knows.

Today was Finn's 9 month appointment. They have little physicals every three months, though we brought him in every month for weight checks for his first few months at home, just to make sure he was progressing. These appointments take a little more time, and this is when they ask their development questions.

This month, it was pincer grasp, waving, giving and taking objects, crawling, solid food, and pulling himself up. I was rather dreading the solid food question, but when the nurse asked, I said "He loves his fruits and vegetables," and that was the last mention of it. Fortunately, they are looking at him and what he is doing rather than what we are doing to him. If he were exhibiting signs that something was wrong, then they could talk to us about what we are doing to him.

We had to say "no" to waving, giving, and crawling, but his pediatrician is not concerned about it, and neither am I. We work on those things, and I think that once he catches on, he'll catch on in a big way.

"You look a little tired," Dr. K. said to him.

He has a little cold, a little bit of congestion, which I have been watching. It could be that or teething or something else that has given him (and me) two relatively sleepless nights in a row, and two before that which were interesting. He would fall asleep for a little while and then wake up and scream. Dr. K. said that the teething can be worse when the teeth are coming down, rather than when they are actually cutting through. She thinks he's about a month out from cutting.

His head is on the curve, which means his big old brain is getting bigger and progressing as it should, and he's still on the curve for weight to length ratio. He's following the curve in length for age and also in weight for age. She's pleased with all of that. She does not expect him to "catch up," necessarily, she expects him to progress.

He's 2 feet, 1.75 inches tall, weighs 15 pounds, 4 ounces, and his head is 17.01 inches around.

The moment I laid him down on the paper-covered table to get his sleeper and undershirt off, he started crying. Yup. He's onto us. He remembers now that shots happen when you lay down on that thing. And, we did not disappoint him. He had his last shot in the first round of DTaP. We had to go with the brand they carry because we can't get the Daptacel anymore, but she said that there was not a problem if the drug product is different. I'll just keep an eye on him for a couple of days, like I normally do.

He also had his first blood test since we brought him home from the hospital, for lead and iron. I am glad that they are doing this as iron has been harped on so much. We have not been supplementing him as we were told to do, so I am quite curious to see what his levels are.

They did a finger prick to get two little vials of blood. He cried for the prick, but then he seemed quite interested in what they were doing.

Squeeze the finger, scrape the blood into the vial, repeat.

They took two of these. One for lead and one for iron. I would be happy to explain to him how much blood was taken out of me in my first few prenatal visits, if he were interested, but he seemed fine.


He's a good boy. He can stay another week.

1 comment:

susan smith said...

Oh dear--he has his first "weezles and sneezles" as Winnie the Pooh says. I hope they disappear soon! Of course he's so smart and aware I am not surprised he figured the shot thing out! MISS you all--XXXOOO