Thursday, September 19, 2013

My Little Guy

I haven't exactly been at my best lately- just gonna put it out there. I almost messed up our weekend plans a few days back, and yesterday I completely blanked on the Eighteen-month Well Child Physical I had scheduled for Michael, which was already booked exactly two months late.

Thankfully, the doctor's office was able to get us in today instead, both for Michael's assessment and for some vaccination boosters for Amelia. It really kills me that though I was always on top of what Abigail needed, and when, for her spaced schedule, and that I was mostly keeping track with Michael (at first, anyway), I never seem to have any clue anymore what's going on with any of the kids.

To be fair, with the frequency of visits required between their young ages and Amelia's near-monthly vaccine requirements (due to above-mentioned schedule), I've got an overabundance of information to deal with right now that I can no longer be expected to really keep straight in my head. This just means that I should have found some other way to organize it, right?

Hah! What other part of my life right now even resembles that kind of organization?

I'll answer that for you. None. This blog here probably makes the most sense of anything. Now you maybe have some insight into why I like to hang out here every night, even when I have nothing to say.

As it turned out, there were no real answers to be had for Michael's latest emo phase. I didn't really expect any. There are so many potential factors, after all. He is still somewhat sick, he may be still teething (we've still got those two-year molars to expect, eventually), he can't always communicate clearly, and he's going through all kinds of changes right now that probably make him feel pretty alone.

Mostly, though, I think he's frustrated and bored a lot of the time. Thankfully, this morning's doctor's visit spiced things up for everyone. Even though it involved shots (which my brave boy did not even cry over, but my tiny little girl did- just a bit), it was a chance to get out and explore new places and people, and we followed it up with a jaunt in the backyard before lunch.

At the last minute, it occurred to me that I might be setting myself up for problems down the road by allowing Abby to observe the vaccination process. I doubt that she remembers her last experience, so doctor's visits don't have a negative connotation for her yet, and I hope to delay the connection- at least until her three-year assessment. I had Tom try to distract her during the event, and it seemed that she had not noticed. However, she mentioned it later- albeit rather nonchalantly- so it appears that she did. We'll have to see what happens when she's faced with a shot of her own.

I've still got a couple more months before that happens, thankfully. What I know today is that Michael weighed in at 26 lbs, 1 oz (62nd percentile) and measured 33.25 inches in height (53rd percentile). I was a little blown away by that last figure, which we calculated twice because it came in even lower the first time. Really, it should have been taken standing, and wasn't, but while I acknowledge its questionable accuracy, I recognize that it's probably not significantly far off from reality.

Michael has always been my little guy, after all. This probably sounds like a ridiculous thing for me to be saying after confirming that he's very solidly average, but you've got to realize that average looks small among giants. I kind of love that I have one (comparatively) really little one in the mix- Tom and I often joke that Michael's current size is very ergonomic- though I do worry that it will make him feel self-conscious for a good chunk of his childhood. My own brother, Michael, used to seethe at the constant assumptions that he was the younger of us two. I can see this happening between Michael and Amelia in the not-so-far-off future, and I'm sorry that he'll have to put up with it.

However, if there's anything his Uncle Michael has proved, it's that bigger little sisters can be outgrown. Indeed, Uncle Michael ended up outgrowing even his older brother Uncle Kit.

So, I'm going to go ahead and thoroughly enjoy his tininess now.

He's got a long way to go to catch up to Daddy and Uncle Kit.

Because I know, with near-certainty, he's gonna be bigger than both of those guys someday.

(And his giant sisters, too.)