civic duty

[aryanhwy]

Gwen did her civic duty today, getting her 11-month (almost a month late) vaccinations. Even with her fat hammy thighs, the shots are still painful and she cried, but was remarkably easy to calm down again after. We came home and she took a two hour nap before daycare (in part because she'd been up a bit longer than normal), and was all smiles and happiness when I dropped her off, so hopefully she's doing OK. She's never had any adverse reactions to previous immunizations, only napping a bit longer in the afternoon.

I did my civic duty a few weeks ago, via one of the most confusing to orient websites I've ever been forced to use. For awhile, I thought it was simply broken on both FF and IE, until Joel figured out that the things which looked like links weren't, other things were, and there was a complicated procedure -- not the one specified on the site -- that one had to go through to get to a page to be able to download anything.

This will be our last well-baby visit in the Netherlands. We'll need to get hooked up with a dr. in Heidelberg pretty quickly, since soon after we move she'll be ready for her 14 month immunizations; perhaps we can push that to 15 months given that her 11 month boosters happened at almost 12. For the first time, Gwen was put through her paces -- given blocks to see if she could stack them (it hasn't ever occurred to her), given a box of blocks to see if she could pick them out and put them back in (all the time!), given a small crumpled of piece of paper to see if she could pick it up with finger and thumb -- though she only did that with her right hand, I know she can also do it with her left since she picks up pieces of slippery, sticky, slimy banana off her highchair tray routinely, as well as little bits of scrambled egg. She showed off her walking-holding-on-to-one-hand, and she clearly hears and talks all the time. At the end, the nurse commented that for her age, she's somewhat ahead. That's a really nice thing to hear, since I don't really have anything to compare to (other than englandbound's super Cordelia, who is awesome).

She's still short and fat, measuring in at 71.5cm (28"), up 5.5cm from July, and 10.975kg (24lb), up .475kg from my attempt at weighing her at 11 months. I confess, it does worry me a bit, especially since in July, her weight curve had dipped a bit, but it had gone back up. But we're down to ~300-350ml of formula by now, and the three meals + snack (breakfast is usually an egg and a banana, maybe also a plum if I need to keep her distracted; lunch at daycare is bread with butter or cheese spread; she gets a snack of fruit in the afternoon, and maybe also a rice waffle; and then she eats whatever we're eating for supper) that she has aren't excessive, but fall right in line with the pamphlets we've gotten from the consultatiebureau. So I'm going to continue trying to enjoy my chubby little baby and not worry.

I recently checked the amount of vacation I have left (this is not counting days I've already asked off -- and of December, counting the trip to S.A., the trip to the U.S., and the holiday, there's only four days I'm actually scheduled to go into work!), and it's ridiculous -- 14 full days. So I've decided that every day from now until the end of the year that I don't have plans to be out at the office due to meetings, etc., I'm going to take either a full or half-day off. I took this afternoon off, and napped for almost 3 hours. The last few nights have been not the greatest for Gwen, and it was really catching up to me. Fitting, the song that's playing right now is The Postal Service's "Sleeping In". Joel is off to Martijn's to spend the night watching the election results, and in 15 min. I'll head out to daycare to pick Gwen up. Tomorrow I'm taking the whole day off, and have all sorts of grand plans for getting things done during the afternoon when Gwen's at daycare.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

You know, I was thinking after reading your weekend post, "this woman needs to create some time alone for herself." NICE WORK! Be sure some of the things you get done are lying around and relaxing. Glad Gwen is fit as a plump little fiddle. --Bunny

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, today's afternoon nap has done wonders -- among other things, it's left me awake and happy enough to be working tonight on one of the projects I hoped to do Sunday, and since Gwen went to bed earlier than normal, I should even be able to finish it!

[xrian.livejournal.com]

Remember Gwen has two tall thin parents, so I wouldn't worry too much about the chubbiness at this point. Babies do tend to start off that way and it doesn't necessarily mean they'll stay that way.

If she gets to be three or four and is still chubby, then I'd start asking questions. But it sounds like she's eating healthily.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

We're not especially tall, so I never expected her to be especially tall either, but if she's lucky, she's inherited from her mom the same skinny genes that her mom got from hers. :) And Joel commented the other day that he was awfully chubby as a kid.

For the most part, I just enjoy it, because she's deliciously cuddlable. It's just sometimes people make...comments...never forthright, always to the side, and it does make me worry I should be more worried.

[mamamoira.livejournal.com]

It's largely genetics. Don't worry about it. One thing they don't tell you a lot, is that there's child growth charts for each *country*. The USA charts are different from the European charts are different from the Indian charts. They may not be much different, but they are. My two kids eat a thoroughly American diet, having been in the US since infants, and are way way way down on the short/weight side of the USA growth charts, but are firmly dead average on the Indian charts. I assume the same for Gwen.

As she gets more mobile, the weight will shift.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Gwen is definitely lucky in her maternal genetics, my mom and I are about the same height and build despite the age difference, so we've got good long-term genes. :)

I've actually found, as far as I can tell, that the US and Dutch charts are pretty similar for weight, but differ a bit on height. She's definitely lower on the Dutch height charts than the American ones. :)