2 months checkup

RJ went to the pediatrician for his well-child checkup. Everything all tickety-boo, "neurologically very advanced" (doing things our doctor wants to see at 6 months), and unsurprisingly, huge.

RJ is now 16 lbs, 2 oz and 25.5 inches long. With a 43.7 cm head circumference. This last point made our unflappable country doctor raise his eyebrows and repeat the measurement, and also the height but then he said, "well, he's off the charts in all other dimensions too, so if you're not worried, I'm not worried either". We'd discussed the family history of big headedness and thus he just gave us a list of things to watch out for (scissoring of legs, eyes drooping down) and sent us on our merry way without requiring us to book a head ultrasound.

The best part was that I took along Jolly. As mentioned before, he is on a big medical kick so he thought it was super fun to see all of the things he reads about in his doctor books HAPPEN. For Real! He was just super into the checkup and only got worried when the doctor was looking at RJ's ears and nose (he's used to RJ hollering up a storm for nose things because he hates the nasal suction bulb, which, given his ongoing colds, is a regular feature in his life). He was very anxious about RJ being upset by the vaccinations also but he got to go on my arm while the shot was being administered by the only nonsqueamish nurse, so it worked out fine. (First shot wasn't even registered by RJ, second shot was accompanied by a brief rageful howl but nothing worse than the nasal sucking out.) RJ has all his scheduled vaccines and seems to be suffering no ill effects so far, so hurray for that. Only four more months until pertussis immunity is reached and we can start hanging out with all island children again (as opposed to a select few whose vaccination status we know and approve of)!

Afterwards we celebrated the winter solstice which made up for the brevity of the day by being spectacularly gorgeous, sunny and crisp, by going to the labyrinth on the way home and walking a round. I should say I walked a round, RJ slept in his carseat, and Jolly alternated walking parts and running into the center where I'd deposited a snack for a few dried cherries and gummibear bits. So fun and festive, and a marker of how hippie our island is when even the Episcopal Church has a labyrinth for meditative walking in a grove of trees where people have written prayers on pieces of paper and tied them to branches. It was our advent calendar activity for the day... tomorrow, cookie baking! On the way back home for lunch we saw that the neighbor's donkey was wearing a Santa hat (he has an important role in a Christmas play, Ephiny says), which totally made Jolly laugh.

I always love the winter holidays, but this year is extra lovely. Not only because Jolly is really old enough to get it and have intelligent conversations about what's going on, though that's fantastic, but most especially because it's such a contrast from last year. This time last year was definitely dark in ways other than the purely astronomical: we were going through a (second) miscarriage (more accurately, had miscarried and were slogging through an interminable wait to be able to try again). In 2011, we not only succeeded on the following cycle but we actually have the Real, Live BABY from that success and he's healthy and thriving, as is his big brother. We're all so, so happy as a family of four. Insert trite sayings about the darkness being deepest right before daybreak here. No sudden sobbing outbursts while making Christmas cookies this year!

Anyway, I hope everyone else's holidays are filled with as much joy.

And here's a graphic depiction of how crazy RJ's weight increases are to justify why I keep babbling on about it. X axis is months, Y axis is kilograms. The red line is the 97th percentile growth curve, and green is the 50th percentile.

But the height increases are more entertaining, as he's doing a linear growth rather than a curve (with an R^2 value of 0.99966, actually). Months on the x axis, centimeters in length on the y axis.

If this continues, he'll be my height in another two years exactly, and then we'll really have a hard time finding age-appropriate clothing! :)

(And yes, RJ's great-great-grandfather was indeed in the Potsdam Giants.)