Dr. Dreiling examined her on the crinkly paper. He began by putting Poppy on her tum-tum to see if she can hold up her upper body. It turns out that she is able to hold herself up. I was nervous about this test as we are certainly negligent with the supervised tummy time sessions. It stresses me out to see her all squirmy on the floor. Dr. Dreiling showed me how to help her by holding her bum down to sort of anchor her body.
Poppy came in at 25.5 inches tall (or 'long' in her case since she is generally a horizontal being), which puts her in the 85th percentile. This is good, tall is good.
She is 16 pounds and 9 ounces, which puts her in the 95th percentile for weight. Oh boy. Chunk'a'monk. Dr. Dreiling said that it's fine and that she will slim down once she begins crawling and walking. Meanwhile, I think that we'll have to get her some Baby Spanx.
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| 'do you have a fat baby?' |
Dr. Dreiling was impressed with the progress that Poppy's belly button has made. It's becoming less and less herniated and soon it won't be herniated at all.
Dr. Dreiling: 'How's everything going?'
Me: 'Great. She's great. She's been consistently sleeping through the night since 6 weeks.'
Dr. Dreiling: 'Wow. I wouldn't tell a whole lot of people that. I get some babies in here that are 10 months old and still not sleeping through the night.'
Having recently experienced a victorious and peaceful first plane ride with Poppy, I was eager to tell Dr. Dreiling.
Dr. Dreiling: 'Flying with infants is easy. In planes, you are effectively flying at 8,000 feet when the equilized air pressure is taken into account. This makes babies feel drowsy. Flying with toddlers is difficult; they aren't able to pay attention to a full movie yet. So they want to run and play in the aisle. It's for that reason that I say if you don't have to fly with a toddler, then don't.'
It seems that whenever I have a little success story about Poppy's relatively docile comportment, people proceed to tell me about how it won't last for long. A big bucket of misery is lurking just around the corner. Coincidently, it was these same people who told me how difficult it was to have an infant: I won't get any sleep for months and months, it will be really taxing on my marriage, I will lose all interest in things like going to the gym and reading the New York Times which will be convenient since I will never have time to read it anyway. It will take a full 9 months to lose the baby weight (I read that in Vicki Iovine's The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy). When I was pregnant, I began to get scared that 'when the baby comes', it will be all over. Youth, hobbies, travel...nope. All gone.
I know that we are lucky to have a baby who can focus on things and is generally content to do so. I also know that I am very lucky to have the option to take care of Poppy O. instead of having to work. Having said that, Poppy lays quietly in bed next to me while I'm reading The Times (I read one article aloud to her), she stares at me from her Bugaboo while I'm on the treadmill, and I'm sure that she'll do fine at Mommy's Day Out a few hours a week while I'm in class. My point here is this: when you have a baby, it's the baby who is moving in with you. It's okay to expect to be able to continue your own life alongside your baby's life.
Brava my friend :)
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