12-month check-up

I've spent the last two days with Carter, and it's been fantastic. I really missed him last week when Michelle came every day. She normally would come on Wednesdays, but we have tickets to a play tonight, so we rearranged her hours this week so that she'll be here tonight instead.

This morning after we were up and dressed, I decided on a whim to go to IHOP for breakfast. I got a breakfast plate with bacon, sausage, eggs, hash browns, and pancakes, and Carter tried a little bit of everything. He's such a good eater these days, and fun to take out to eat. I know that won't last forever, and I'm dreading the day it ends! Here is a picture from this morning's outing:



He had his 12 month check-up today, and that went pretty well. His weight is 22 pounds 1 ounce, which is in the 50-75th percentile range for his adjusted age, and 25-50th for his chronological age. His height is 28 3/4 inches, which is either wrong or he reeeeally had a growth spurt in the last couple of weeks. We measured him around Christmas and he was about 27.5 inches, so it seems a bit weird that he could have grown over an inch in a few weeks. You'd think I would have noticed the difference in his clothes, at least. I'm going to measure him myself when I get a chance, because that one seems weird to me.

The doctor said he thought Carter was doing really well, and that he's definitely caught up to his adjusted age and seems to be on his way to catching up to his actual age. I'm not really sure what that means, though. There is so much variation in what is normal, after all, and how can we really know what his particular developmental curve would have been if he were full-term? As long as he's not lagging for his adjusted age, I'm not going to worry about it.

He got 4 shots today and he had blood drawn for a CBC. The nurse was quick with the shots, but was trying to engage me in small talk the whole time. I was focused on Carter and trying to comfort him (he was screaming bloody murder, of course), and it went like this:

Carter: *screams*
Nurse: *gives first 2 shots* So, Mom, where are you from?
Me: *holding Carter's hands, talking softly to him*
Nurse: I said, Mom, where are you from?
Carter: *screams*
Me: Uh, North Carolina. *more talking softly to Carter*
Nurse: *gives next 2 shots* Oh, I was stationed at Fort Bragg blah blah blah...
Carter: *still screaming*
Me: *trying to wrestle my shirt up to get Carter on the boob as fast as possible*
Nurse: So, what city were you born in?
Carter: *screams now muffled by boob*
Me: Uh, yeah, born in North Carolina.
Nurse: *annoyed* I said, what city?
Carter: *pops off boob to scream more*
Me: Uh... Give me a minute, would you?

I mean seriously, I was doing something important! What the hell? It was very intentional, like his task was to stop me from comforting my screaming baby. I have no idea what that was about, but it was really annoying.

But anyway, one of the great things about breastfeeding is the magical power of the boob. When the nurse finally shut up, it took about 30 seconds for Carter to completely calm down. He nursed for another minute (and kept his eye on that nurse the whole time), and then he was fine. People tell me often that one of the great benefits of nursing into the toddler years is that nursing eases the pain of all those little bumps and bruises and even helps soothe tantrums. It's definitely made a big difference in soothing owies so far!

Carter also had blood drawn for a CBC, which they did with a finger stick, then squeezing blood into a tube. Oddly, he didn't even flinch, just sat there and watched. That worried me, actually -- when little babies don't react to pain it often means they've just shut it out, that it was too much to process. I don't know if that's true for the older ones, though. He was sort of dazed after that, poor kid. The results of the CBC will tell me if I need to be better about giving him his iron supplement. I've slacked off on that lately...

Otherwise, all is well.