Skinny mini

Not much news around these parts, although Curly had his 4 year check-up yesterday. I have no idea why we didn’t know they give 4 year olds four shots (!), but we didn’t. They wanted to do another DTap, MMR, Polio and Chicken Pox. We did the first two, but decided to hold off on the second two until next month. We’re fans of a slightly delayed schedule…I mean, just those two shots yesterday gave him 6 vaccinations. That’s a lot for any person’s body to handle, especially a small one. Speaking of small, Curly weighs in at 32 pounds and 39.5 inches. That’s 10% and 20% respectively. He is a skinny little guy. I know some of you out there with 2 year olds bigger than that 😉

Gotta say though, Curly was amazing with the shots. The nurse gave him the first one and he didn’t flinch and had no reaction. All of us were shocked, like, do you realize what just happened? The second shot, MMR, is a painful one, so that elicited a few tears, but he just sat there and took it while I cradled his head against me. And then was quickly distracted by the offer of stickers and a lollipop and cheerfully exited the office. Amazing.

We have some blood work to do unfortunately. While he is overall healthy and on-track, he does require more sleep than every other 4 year old on the planet (12 hours at night and a 2-3 hour nap daily for a whopping total of 14-15 hours) and finally our doctor shares the concerns we’ve had since he was a baby. They’ll check his iron levels, electrolytes and do a full CBC to see if anything’s off. Beyond that, it’s either problems getting quality sleep which will be a whole other bucket of fun, or just…it is what it is.

Goofball chic at the doctor’s office

Just keep swimming

This weekend was unseasonably hot for our area. On Saturday, we took Curly to a place where there was “jumping water”…one of those open areas where kids can run around and splash in water that is propelled upwards from grates in the ground. When we arrived, there was one little girl hopping around soaking wet. Curly had no interest getting in, plopped himself into a nearby chair, and watched her playing. After 10 minutes, Nutella and I took our shoes off and joined the little girl…blocking the grates with our feet and laughing as the water shot out everywhere. And after watching us for 2 minutes, Curly was on the ground taking off his shoes and then running towards us. He wanted to hold our hands and was extremely cautious about the water….but finally, after we went back to sit at our table, he stayed and completely gave in to the fun of it- using his hands and feet to block or catch the water, running in circles with the little girl and then the many other kids that joined in, and basically getting soaked from head to toe. Glad we brought an extra pair of clothes.

The next day, Nutella’s parents visited us and we went to our local pool. I asked Curly if he wanted to learn how to swim and he said yes. The second I tried it, holding his body up and asking him to kick his legs, he freaked out and demanded I put him back in the kid area where he could stand. I had him “swim” back over there while I held him and we let him do his own thing for a while. After a bit, we tried again…showing him how to hold the side of the pool and kick his legs…holding him up again and getting him to kick and use his arms as we glided him across the water…having him piggyback us and go around the pool. He tried it with Nutella, myself, and grandpa and by the end, he appeared to have gone a complete 180 degrees from his first try.

There’s nothing spectacularly interesting about either scenario. They are just illustrations of how we as parents deal with a slow-to-warm-up child, learning how to deal with his personality in a way that both respects him but pushes him, knowing what benefits lie at the other end. But this is also a picture of an LGBT family.  If you didn’t know we were before reading this, you’d have had no idea…and so I dedicate this post to today’s LGBT Family blogging day. Our families are just the same, and just as different, as everyone else’s.

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