String Bean City
Yesterday I took Henry in for his 15-month physical. (I think that makes it about 243 times we’ve been to that office in the past 450 days, although I think that’s about standard nowadays.) Up until now, Henry has been okay with the whole experience. He happily plays with the doctor and the stethoscope and whatever else happens to be lying around in the exam room. He flirts with the receptionist. And stares into the eyes of the nurse (that is until she decides to stick him in the arm with a sharp poker).
But yesterday, for the first time, he realized where he was and what was going to happen to him. He saw the cheesy pictures hanging from the wall, the bad wallpaper, the cold, sterile examination table, and put 2 and 2 together to get “owie”.
So he cried a little and didn’t want the nurse to weigh and measure him, and when the doctor came in, he clung to me like a leech to my leg that one time I went swimming in a pond in Louisiana. (Note: that never happened.)
To pass the time between the doctor and nurse coming in, the only thing that made him happy was running around the office. So our child — wearing only a diaper — was scampering about, saying “hell-looow” (that’s how he pronounces it — a lilting “hell” and a drawn out “looooow”) to all the other patients and employees.
A quick aside. Henry likes to run around naked and/or in his diaper. Unfortunately, whenever we’ve lately taken his diaper off, it’s either to get him into a tub, change it, or have him sit on the potty. Yesterday morning, after Kristen left for work, I took off his diaper, turned to get something out of his drawer, and saw him standing over the potty, urinating… well, not into it, but in its vicinity. He gave himself a nice round of applause, and scooted off to the living room as I wiped up the liquid gold.
So, back to the doctor. Everything is fine with Henry: he’s hitting all those milestones, eating right, etc. When I got back to work, I put his new measurements into a handy-dandy calculator to see how he compared with other kids his age.
He’s 33 inches tall. That puts him in the 90th percentile. (We assume he’ll be tall. While Kristen’s short-ish, her father is over 6 feet and I’m 6′ 2″.
His head is 48 centimeters in circumference. That’s in the 75th percentile. So he has a nice sized noggin, but not too big.
He weighs 22 pounds, 5 ounces. That puts him in the — get this — 20th percentile. 20th! So, he’s taller than 90 percent of all 15-month-olds, but is heavier than only 20 percent! String bean city!
We knew he was skinny because his pants keep on falling down, but this is just insane!
And it’s not like we don’t feed him enough! Sometimes he shoves so much food into his mouth, I don’t know how he breathes! (The funny thing is, after his dinner — which lately has been spinach and cheese ravioli with tomato sauce — his stomach sticks out like a cartoon character’s! I’m waiting for the day his tummy button — which he can point to, by the way — pops out like a turkey timer!)
I’m not really concerned. He’s growing, he’s eating, he’s pooping — all with regularity. I just want him to get a little meat on them there bones.
November 27th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Amazing that he weighs so little! My neighbor’s daughter is 4-1/2 months old and weighs 19 pounds! Of course, she’s off the charts. Fiona weighs 15 pounds 11 ounces, so she’s catching up to Henry, too.