Good Golly, Miss Molly!

(You knew it was only a matter of time before that post title appeared!) Molly is two weeks old! She had her doctor's appointment yesterday to check her weight and her jaundice. Molly now weighs six pounds and has officially regained her birth weight (and then some). The doctor decided that the weight they got last Thursday must have been off, unless Molly somehow managed to gain a half a pound in four days. That being the case, she was probably gaining fine all along and we were worried for nothing. Her jaundice is much better and should totally resolve in the next few weeks. Unless something changes, they won't bother testing her bilirubin levels again. No more heel pokes -- hooray! Molly doesn't have to go back until her regular two-month checkup.

I did talk to the doctor about how cautious we have to be about keeping Molly "in lockdown" to minimize the chance of her getting sick. Since Max was so early and small and had more serious respiratory issues, he didn't go anywhere except doctor's appointments for three months after he came home. The doctor said we should probably keep Molly out of the limelight for about a month past her original due date. The doctor thinks she'll qualify for the monthly synagis shots this year (which surprised me), so we're debating whether or not she should have them. It isn't easy to qualify for the shots, but they will minimize the severity of an RSV infection. Max had RSV shots his first winter (right before he came home from the NICU). His qualifications were borderline last year and his pediatrician thought he was big enough to weather the virus, so we didn't get them for him last year. As it turns out, he did catch it (or something just like it) and did develop bronchiolitis, but he was able to handle the virus without any serious problems. Molly will still be very young and small when RSV season starts and since she has siblings who are in school, it might be a good idea.

Max is in full toddler mode and is keeping us on our toes with all the new ways he devises to get himself in trouble. ;) I'm sure most of his recent bout of naughtiness is related to the arrival of his new sister, whether he knows it or not. He's growing and changing and learning new things every day -- it's like his brain suddenly hit a growth spurt. He's started to say please and thank you, which is very cute (especially because "please" is always a whispered "peees") -- he figured out very quickly that please makes it more likely that he'll get what he wants. ;) I let him play with my purse the other day and eventually put it up when Max started getting mad because I wouldn't open it for him (enabling him to get at my cell phone and car keys). After I put it up, he kept signing for "more" and I kept signing and saying "all done." He then took both my hands and started pushing them together, making me do the sign for "more." Clever though it was, he still didn't get the purse. ;)

Max has discovered that it is fun to try to put on Mom's shoes, even though he can't quite figure out how to do it. He was trying to put his own socks on the other day and was entirely confused as to how to get the socks ON his feet. He kept laying them on top of his feet and seemed to expect them to magically adhere to his body. "This Little Piggy" is one of Max's current favorite games (as mentioned previously, he calls it "Piggums"). If you ask him where his piggums are, he'll wiggle his own toes. When I was feeding Molly yesterday, he walked over to her, gently grabbed her little toes, and started wiggling them and saying, "piggums, piggums, piggums." It's a good thing he's cute or else we might be tempted to sell him to the gypsies. ;)