The nicest people in the world

Sadly, I am not one of them.

But you know those people - the ones that are just so nice and kind and generous with their time, money, career, etc.? Those of us who don't fit into that mold tend to wonder if it is for real. Well it is. Because no one not genuine could maintain that facade for long, I am convinced.

My ob is one of those people. I, on a rare occasion, have seen glints of frustration as he has come from another room containing a "wimpy" patient. But 99.5% of the time that I have known him, nicest person in.the.world.

I see these women walk into his office, hugely pregnant, finishing the last drag on their cigarette outside before setting foot in the office (but hovering with the door open), hauling their strung out looking boyfriends/husbands who are wearing pajama pants with them, cussing up a storm. And I cringe.

And then I hear him in the room with them next door, full of compassion and kindness. And I feel guilty.

I couldn't do that. I know a little about his history from the occasional friendship we have forged outside of the office. His passion in life is treating not women like me (educated, able to support ourselves), but poverty level women with few options in life. In addition to his MD, he has a Masters in Public Health and has a keen understanding of how the care (or lack of) a woman receives in her doctor's office translates to her acceptance in social situations and her ability to raise her family. He hopes to retire from his practice soon (has scaled it back to 2 days a week in the office presently) and move to Central America and practice medicine among the third world inhabitants there.

I wanted to go to medical school once. And each time I have been in a hospital be it for birthing my kids or having my gall bladder out I have wistfully wondered what it would be like to be a physician and have longed for that experience of walking through the halls of a hospital. I wanted to be a nurse until I was about 5 when my nurse grandmother said, "you don't want to be a nurse, you want to be a doctor!"

I had a stint in there where I wanted to be an astronaut. Then a teacher. But for the vast majority of my school life I wanted to be a doctor. I scored very average on the MCAT. I worked in a doctor's office for 5 years. I had an "in" to the local med school through my college employer (a dermatologist) who was also a professor at the medical school one half day a week.

Then I dumped it all and went to grad school.

I wanted to be a plastic surgeon actually. While in college I would fill in with one of my doctor's good friends when he was short staffed in his Reconstructive Surgery office. I loved it. But wow it seemed like a long haul. Medical School, Surgical Residency, Plastic Surgery Residency...

I told AB about how I noted that I just did not have what it took to do what my ob does every day. See these women and be compassionate about their situation, when I would really just want to slap them upside the head. I would be the most frustrated person around.

"But you would have never gone into obstetrics," AB said the other night. "You would so be spending your days doing boob jobs intermingled with the occasional pro bono case! You would still have your wackos to deal with, they would just be different wackos."

He is right. It's dang good I went into research and not medicine because I do not regularly have to work with wackos at all this way.

And it isn't just in medicine where you find these nicest people ever. I truly have some of the nicest friends ever. And I wonder what it would take - how they do it? If they don't have that same voice in their head that I do?

Well, I guess it is something for me to work on.

After I birth this baby, because right now it just isn't in me!

Shrimp anyone?

Skadi had her well child visit the other day. It was actually last week. I normally post stats and such quickly and do a comparison.

Comparing didn't require me going to my blog this time. I know who is bigger/heavier.

Not my daughter.

I am not terribly tall, but I am not short either. Just a touch under average at 5'5". AB is just over average at just over 6' tall. So one would reason that our children should fall in there somewhere.

Leif at three was pretty normal to slightly tall: 32 lbs and 55th percentile, 39.25" and 85th percentile. Makes sense.

Skadi started out big... but if you project her adult height based off her current 3yo well child stats she should hit about 5'3".

It caused a bit of pause from her doctor. 30.25 lbs (gained 2.25 lbs since age 2) and 36.25" (grew 1.25"). She is just under 50th percentile for weight and hitting in at 29th percentile for height.

Not that big of a deal - she could be between spurts... she could be leveling out on the charts and being where she should be and will thus just not be a tall girl (the short genes do run on my side with my mom and grandma).

We have noted that she is the smallest among her peers. AB is the one who recently started commenting on it prior to the doctor's appointment. I keep buying size 3T for summer clothes and occasionally 4T for next fall. But her 2T's fit her best still. And the size 9 Keens I bought on clearance at a great price in pink for this summer? They should fit her next summer I expect...

The bigger concerns lie with her constant complaining of back aches. I have taken her to the doctor before with no path forward and a feeling she is just latching onto something to complain about. This time I pushed it because she cries, "mommy, my back hurts" and bends over or grasps her back. It just seems real.

And sure enough when her doctor pushed on her back - at her kidneys, Skadi jumped and said "oww!"

That earned her a quick referral for an ultrasound this week.

Not a great well child visit for age three.

Skadi 18 month well baby

This morning was Skadi's well baby exam. Her doctor called this the Tasmanian Devil stage and she wasn't kidding.

The actually called us back quickly so Skadi didn't have any time to play with the waiting room toys. This put a short lived cramp in her style. Of course then we got the requisite 15 minute wait in the exam room with her in just her diaper with no toys. Yeah, sucky mom I am, no toys in the diaper bag since I had just cleaned it out from our Idaho trip. Though it isn't hard to convince her that her shoes are toys.

The reason kids this age wear clothes is to keep their diaper on. I am convinced. Ok, too look cute too. But clothing at this age serves a very important purpose. Could not get the child to keep her diaper on. I finally gave up.

Skadi was diagnosed anemic a few months ago and has been on iron supplements since. She had her second blood draw last week - oh and by the way, not fun for a toddler... or mom. Her iron levels are on the low side of normal, but we are happy with this. Supplements will decrease to 3-4 times a week - basically every other day for the next three months and then a month off and blood work again. And a hope that her anemia is resolved.

Then the moment of truth... the height and weight check.

Height - 33" (86th percentile)
Weight - 24 lbs 7 oz (50th percentile)

Being a paranoid mom type, I couldn't help but notice that my daughter has lost weight in the last 6 months. Her stats 6 months ago have her at 25 lbs 2 oz and 3 months ago (apparently not blogged about) at 24 lbs 8 oz. She was a chunk once upon a time. Now? Not so much. She has really leaned out. She eats very well - better than her brother. So I am not going to worry about it. As her doctor put it, "this isn't uncommon for bigger babies as they enter their Tasmanian Devil stage".

Milestone-wise Skadi's vocabulary just suddenly took off. AB and I noted receently that even though Skadi had fewer words than Leif did at this age, she is much more communicative. She has picked up sign language very well at her Montessori school. Often times I have to go in and ask what a sign is. She signs "more", "again", "food", "drink", "all done" and "all gone" routinely.

Her vocab is growing and she has just started stringing two words together... though one of those words is very often "no". This morning it was "no no apples" as she didn't want to wear her apple polo shirt. She repeats a lot - we are pretty sure she said "hi grandma" a few times on the phone to my mom. And the other day we were amazed when in the daycare parking lot she pointed to one of Leif's best friends and said, "Niranjana" repeatedly. She even pronounced it better than Leif does! Though we are very shocked that she does not say "Leif" yet.

Some of her words are: more, no, hi, bye bye, hug, baby, swim, boat, plane, apples, fruit (which she has finally decided is not poison), mama, dada, cat, nay nay (horsey), cracker, yummy, baba (bottle), bath, poo poo, diap (diaper), and wipe. I know there are more but I am blanking.

Skadi is much more into toys than Leif ever was. She will sit and play Little People for awhile - whereas Leif is into interacting with people and currently his imagination. Our downfall is that we tend to forget she and Leif are different kids. The perils of the second child? I make assumptions a lot that she likes doing the same things, when she clearly does not.

TV does not interest her at all. (Leif could watch an entire Disney flick and be mesmerized at this point.) She likes to be held and she likes to sing songs, dance, swim, read books and play with her baby. Skadi's favorite song is "Row Row Row your boat". She wobbles back and forth singing "wo wo wo boat" to try to get you to sing with her. And yes, she does love boats and freaks out when she sees one. Her daddy's genes there.

Everyone says Skadi looks a lot like me. She has my hair, but her complexion is a touch darker (she has tan lines...) her eyes are still mix between blue and brown - I hope they stay that way. And she has her daddy's long black eyelashes amazingly enough. I think she has AB's families eyes.

The Plague

I count myself lucky that my family is healthy and we don't typically tend to get sick. A cold here and there, the occasional GI stuff that hangs for a day or so. But nothing out of the ordinary.

Until the month of April.

Our house has been afflicted with the plague. The exact date is still up in the air - AB insists he is going on a full four weeks of cold. He remembers starting Zicam on Thursday the 3rd. (This does mean I can blame him, right?) Then that following weekend Skadi had the stomach bug that wouldn't leave.

It took about a week for AB and I to officially kick the stomach crud. (Leif went unafflicted, thankfully.) But for AB it was concurrent stomach and cold virus. Lovely.

The kids got the cold virus and then - a week after everyone else, my body gave up the ghost and succumbed too.

AB saw the site nurse and was given an antibiotic prescription despite my insistence that it was a cold or the flu and that antbiotics wouldn't do anything. (One of my pet peeves... that antibiotics are frequently doled out for the common cold or the flu thus attributing to antibiotic resistance and plain it just does no good!)

Ok, so he MAY have needed them, he felt a little better afterwards.

This past Friday marked my two weeks of cold virus - it was on its way out. I had a nagging cough, but that was it.

Then on Saturday it started ALL over again with the runny nose and congestion. Leif woke up Sunday saying his ears hurt. He even went so far as to put bandaids on his ears. (Yes, I should have gotten a picture.)

Once my mom and stepdad took off I told AB I was taking him to the Urgent Care and reluctantly agreed that since I was taking Leif anyways, I should be seen.

See I insist on and make appointments for everyone else in my house but me to see the doctor. Truly, I am not sure why my aversion to the doctor aside from my insisting that I am fine, I am healthy, I don't need antibiotics. (Nor do I *really* want antibiotics - they do mean things to my stomach.)

Leif was diagnosed with double ear infections and got a prescription for antibiotics. (He DOES have a tendency towards bacterial ear infections after viral infections - we don't mess around with waiting it out with him.)

Me? A sinus infection and secondarily infected bronchitis. Heavy duty antibiotics for me.

So for all my insisting that I don't need antibiotics?

24 hours later and my life is different on antibiotics. Yeah yeah yeah.

Skadi stats

Length - 29.75" - 75th percentile
Weight - 25 lbs, 2 oz - 95th percentile
Head 45 cm

I thought about complaining about what a handful she was in the doctor's office, then I found Leif's post on his one year well baby. Yeah, well I remember that day. And suddenly my whiney little girl who was only happy sitting on the exam table throwing her shoes and socks on the floor for who knows how long just seemed so much easier. Maybe girls are more mellow...

The main thing is that she is healthy, happy and tolerating her 4 immunizations well.

For comparison... Leif at that age:
Weight 23 lbs 12.5 oz (33%)
Height 30.25" (55%)
Head 47 cm