Well-Child Check-Ups

Yesterday, I took both of the girls to their well-child check-ups (this was supposed to happen two weeks ago, but I had to re-schedule due to the bad snowstorm in our area). Neither of the girls needed any shots, so I was pretty happy about that (and the girls were too).

Samantha weighs 34 lbs, which puts her in the 78th percentile for weight, based on her age. She is a great eater, not too picky about anything, and she drinks her 2% organic milk faithfully.

What is most surprising is that she is 39" tall, which puts her in the 85th percentile for height!!! She has always been long and lean, but I suspected that she would start to taper off in length, simply because Steve and I are not very tall, ourselves.

Dr. Shoemaker was very impressed with how social and intellectual Samantha is. She has accomplished the developmental skills of 4 and 5-year olds alread,y and there wasn't one thing that Samantha was not able to do at Dr. Shoemaker's request.

Sam will go back to the doctor after she turns 4 next year, and we will gear up and get her all of the vaccinations that she will need then in order to start school.

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My little Sophia -- always laughing!

While Sophia is 28" long, putting her in the 55th percentile for length, she is very petite based on her weight. She only weighs 14 lbs, 15 oz right now. That puts her in less than the 5th percentile for weight.

Her weight is definitely not due to a lack of eating -- this girl can eat like a horse and does so on a regular basis. There is NOTHING that she won't eat! And she nurses regularly 3-4 times a day. Dr. Shoemaker suspects that she is just a petite girl (Sam always was too with her weight), and because she is SO active right now, she just needs more calories. So, in addition to her yogurt yesterday, I also gave her some pudding. She liked that a lot! I'm also going to introduce some cheese and white meats this week. No cow's milk until she is a year old.

I will take Sophia back to the doctor in about a month for a weight-check, just to make sure that she is, in fact, gaining weight. As long as she doesn't lose weight in the next month, we will continue introducing more calories. If for some reason, she loses weight (which I don't think will be the case), we may have to do some bloodwork to make sure that everything is up to par.

Developmentally, she has already accomplished all of the tasks for a 9-month old, and has completed a lot of the tasks for a 12-month old already. Dr. Shoemaker remarked that she is very strong and seems quite happy and content. All of that is true ...

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And here's one last picture of the girls together before their appointment yesterday. This is typically how the "photo shoots" go these days!