well visit 2007

4 year well-visit: The kids are growing like weeds. Here’s what I wrote last year: “. In the past year Alex has gone from 29lb 34.5in tall to 33lb 38 in tall, and Chloe has gone from 25lb 33.5in tall to 29lb 37 in tall.” This year Alex is 37.6 lb 40.5 in, and Chloe is 33.2 lb 39.5in. So Alex has grown 1.5 in and Chloe has grown 2.5 in. Seems like more than that when I put last year’s pants on them! Chloe’s height is in the 50th percentile and her weight is in the 25th percentile and they asked me if she is eating ok. Chloe eats like it is going out of style, she just bounces it all off, Tigger-style. I guess it is pretty unusual for a kid with such big parents to be on the smaller end of the curve, but Chloe has always been on the smaller end of the curve, so it is not like there is a change. We talked to the pediatrician about Chloe walking on her toes. We’ve talked with the pediatrician about this every year since she could walk and they’ve always said that she has full range of motion in her tendons, she just chooses to walk on her toes. Well this year they said her tendons have gotten short/tight and that she will need physical therapy. I am SO not looking forward to another activity that the kids don’t want to do. Then I talked to the doctor about Chloe’s acid reflux getting worse. He said she is on a pretty high dose of Prevacid already and we should go to the gastroenterologist before we decide what to do, and in the mean time give Chloe Malox at meals. There is a surgery that can correct the problem she has with the top of her stomach, but it would of course be a last resort. I have to wonder how close we are to that since Chloe threw up the other day (and showed no other signs of illness and ate fine for the rest of the day) and last night she told us she was swallowing yucky stuff that came up into her mouth. Her reflux was under control until 2-3 weeks ago, so I hope this is just a phase. Then we talked about Alex. The doctor said kids aren’t expected to say “L’s” properly until 1st grade, so no worries there. The doctor also spent a great deal of time explaining what to do this winter as each of the asthma symptoms inevitably gets worse this winter. This willingness to take time to talk through the kids issues is why we’ve stuck with this doctor. Chloe was having trouble being patient through the discussion and kept asking for her turn to talk to the doctor. Before the appointment I’d made a list of all the things I wanted to talk about, so Chloe decided she’d make a list of what she wanted to talk about. She asked me to write “shot” and then she did her best to copy it. I made the mistake of telling her a full day in advance that she was going to get a shot. She told me over and over that she didn’t want a shot. I read her the story from last year when I got the flu shot first and then the nurse asked “who wants to go next?” and Alex said “me!”. He got his shot and said “ouch!” and then he got his Band-Aid and then said “it doesn’t hurt anymore!” Alex decided he was going to brave again this year and go first. He said he wasn’t scared, he was brave. Chloe continued to say she was scared. When the nurse arrived with the shots we found out they would each have to get FIVE shots. Alex still said he would go first. The nurse started taking the caps off the shots and Alex said “Mom, those are needles!” Poor kid had no idea what a shot was! I still made him go first and he did great through the first 3, then he started crying pretty hard with the last two. This really set Chloe off and she was crying and screaming “no!” We pulled her pants down and pinned her down and I have never heard anyone scream like that except in slasher movies. Poor kid was really terrified. All day afterward whenever she’d think about it, she’d start crying again and say, “I didn’t want to get shots, they hurt too much!” I haven’t told them yet that they have to get Hepatitis shots before we go on our cruise, and I haven’t told Chloe about physical therapy. Since we’re having so much trouble with school and swimming, I might hold off a couple weeks.