Breaking the Curve

Molly had her well baby checkup yesterday and she's a preemie superstar! For those of you who were playing along at home, Molly weighed in at 22 lbs and was measured at 29 inches long. Once again, my formerly petite princess was found at the top of the growth charts -- 91% for weight, 85% for height, and 40% for head circumference (that's actual age, mind you). Big baby! I think the height measurement might have been a little inflated, because Molly was being pretty wiggly. But, then again, the girl is wearing 12 and 12-18 month clothes, so maybe not!

She was doing everything on the developmental checklist, with the exception of the "pincher grasp." The doctor was a little concerned about that and wanted me to let her know in a month's time if Molly still wasn't picking up small objects between her forefinger and thumb. Of course, I immediately started worrying about that, until I got home and told Dad about her delayed milestone. Dad started laughing and told me that Molly has been doing that for weeks! Observant mama that I am, I never even noticed (I guess I'm doing a better job keeping the floors clean than I thought!). So, I plonked Molly down, tore up a couple tiny pieces of white paper, and set them on the carpet in front of her. Sure enough, she daintily picked up the paper between her thumb and forefinger and quickly tried to stuff it in her mouth. So, I guess I'll check that off of my worry list and start thinking about trying Molly on some finger food.

Dad had a dentist appointment at the same time as the checkup, so Max came with me to the doctor's office. His recent round of doctor and hospital visits must have affected him, because as soon as we walked into the examining room he started to HOWL. I sat him down on one of the chairs and he started to feel a bit better after they wheeled in the scale to weigh Molly (after all, it has buttons). Within a few minutes he was checking out the room, trying to steal the nurse's pen, flirting with the doctor, and eyeing the laptop. He got a lollipop on the way out, so hopefully the uneventful visit reinforced the idea that bad things don't always happen at the doctor's office!

The weather is warming up here, so we've been having lots of fun going for walks and rides. Today Big Brother and Big Sister had a track meet, so Max and Molly got to spend a couple hours outside at one of the local high school's sports field. Since Max inherited Mom's fair skin and since we're not taking any chances with Molly, even though she didn't, the babies were well coated with sunblock and sporting sun hats (thank goodness for sun hats with chin straps). Max was less than interested in the track meet and just wanted to go exploring in the grass. Between events, we trudged through the grass behind the bleachers, examining the grass and plants and looking for bugs. Max was fascinated by a big, old bumblebee that was flying around. He'd follow after it yelling, "Bee! Bee!" until it flew up out of his sight. He'd then look around for it until it flew back down to toddler level. The big kids gave it their all at the meet and Big Brother came in second in his heat (even though he was racing against much older kids). It was nice to attend a school sporting event outside for a change -- stuffy gymnasium and bottom-numbing bleachers get old after a while!