Too bad she doesn’t appreciate Snoopy bandaids!

Yesterday Livia and I picked up Jeremy from work and visited Dr. Brabec for Livia’s four-month checkup. It’s a unique thing, visiting your child’s doctor. I have seen family doctors, dentists, endocrinologists, chiropractors, orthopedists and ENTs over the years and now even a rheumatologist. I’ve been around the block, so to speak, when it comes to visiting doctors, but it all changes when you take your child to one. All of a sudden, you become much more aware of “bedside manner”, much more concerned with growth and development milestones, and much more pained by shots and blood-draws.

I repeat, much more pained by shots and blood-draws.

Okay. So we pretty much cried with her at her two-month checkup.

Yesterday it was just a little bit better. For me at least; I made Jeremy hold her. Laugh and scoff at us soft-hearted parents, if you will, but beware! Someday it will be YOUR baby visiting the pediatrician. YOUR baby being held down for shots. And YOUR heart being wrought with thoughts of How can I be such a cruel parent? This is for her good, isn’t it? Fortunately, Livia calmed down fairly quickly and fell asleep in the car immediately, ouchy thighs replaced by sweet baby dreams. The fun part of the appointment was that our kiddo is growing and developing beautifully! She’s gone from 9lb, 15oz to 12lb, 9oz and from 22.75 inches in length to 25.75 inches. Yup, she’s our long baby; 90–95 percentile in height and only 25–50% in weight.

For now, we’ll continue to parent as we’ve been parenting: feeding her 5 bottles a day, giving her “tummy time”, and playing with her and cuddling her to our hearts’ delight. In a few months we’ll start feeding her solids and our routines will be slightly altered again. At that point she’ll go, once more, for a check-up and, ugh, shots. Maybe then she’ll be glad for bandaids featuring Joe Cool.