VINCENT!
I absolutely love this picture idea of writing down all of Vincent's measurements and interests on the actual picture taken from his "birthday." Since we go to the doctor every three months and get accurate measurements I think you can count on seeing something like this on those days in the future. Just another way of documenting it all :0)
Speaking of doctors visits, today's was really good. Which is the complete opposite of his last one. The last couple of visits actually, have left both Jay and I feeling extremely frustrated. When your child comes into the world you try to pick the best possible pediatrician to look after him. They are the ones who hold all of the critical knowledge that give us parents a glimpse at the healthiness of our children. Unfortunately, ours has let us down. For instance. At V's one year appointment, our Pediatrician turned into a nurse practitioner.. Not that there is anything wrong with nurse practitioners looking over our child, but I was expecting the same expertise as the pediatrician and was sadly let down. Instead, I left there scared and asking for even more answers. Previous to going into the doctors appointment, Vincent had had a couple of night terror spells. Which by the way, is a very scary thing to experience as a parent when you have no idea what is happening to your child in the middle of the night. When I explained everything to the nurse practitioner, she immediately went into "over cautious" mode and decided that he ought to be seen by a Neurologist! She thought that he may be having seizures of some sort and thought it better be safe than sorry to have him checked out - first freak out moment of the visit for me. As she continued looking him over she then began to tell me that his skin did look a little more yellow than it ought to so the next request was to have him tested, AGAIN, for Jaundice - second freak out moment. Finally, after she reviewed all of his measurements she began to tell me that he is very much under weight - have you seen his dad?? Obviously not. Finally she tells me he needs four shots. All of which can lead to some sort of crazy side effect like the flu, a rash, fever, fussiness, etc. I almost broke down right there. Another unfortunate was that I was all by myself. Because the doctors office had rescheduled our appointment so many times without telling us, Jay wasn't able to get off work so I was flying completely solo. I decided to get two of the four shots and would come back in a month to get the other two. The last thing I needed was a teething, feverish, baby covered in measles at his 1st birthday. I called Jay afterwards and completely broke down. Our baby needed to go to the Neurologist? He's Jaundice and underweight?? I thought I was going in for a very routine appointment and left feeling scared and worried out of my mind.
Flash forward three months and many many chats later, I had his medical records moved to another medical office. I had only seen this doctor one time when vincent was battling a little bit of a cold longer than I had thought was normal, so I was optimistic at how the appointment would go. She was, after all, a real pediatrician who had the time to see me and not reschedule 15 times. This appointment was looking up from the get go! And I was immediately relieved when, since she hadn't seen Vincent before, she started asking questions. She asked questions about Jay since unfortunately he couldn't get off work to be there. She was so thorough that an hour had passed and we still felt welcomed and cared for. When I told her about the night terrors she calmly reassured me that they are completely normal and actually very common. That everything he was doing during the episodes was nothing to be afraid of and nothing I could control but that he would be perfectly fine. PHEW! She told me that no, he's not Jaundice, he just likes to eat lots of carrots and orange colored food! Finally she did tell us that yes, unfortunately he is a little under weight but that it can be solved by dramatically increasing his milk intake. I had no idea that milk provided so many calories so he is very much missing out on all that extra fat with his hatred of the stuff. That will be our newest battle but it's nothing a little chocolate can't help, hopefully ;0).
Not on the top of my list of concerns was the fact that he still uses a pacifier and I rock him to sleep at night but she gave me some excellent ideas on how to break both and encouragement to do so. "I'm not a bad mom", "I'm not a bad mom", "I'm not a bad mom" :0) Sometimes you feel like you can't do anything right but doctor appointments like this made me feel like I may actually know what I'm doing! It's one huge understatement to say that I finally feel some relief to my worries. Thank you Dr. Young!
Our 15 month old is happy and healthy. Can't ask for more than that :0)
