12 Month Dr. Visit

Friday afternoon was Austin's 12 month well baby visit with the pediatrician. He's actually lost a little bit of weight since his last visit and grown almost 2 inches!! Talk about a growth spurt, huh? For the first time since he was a few days old, Austin fell below the 90th percentile in weight...all the way down to the 63rd percentile (23 lbs) in fact. He is in the 85th percentile for height (31 inches) after his big growth spurt, so instead of being short and chunky like he has been since he was a month old...he is now getting tall and lean. Maybe he'll get his daddy's height after all! The doctor mentioned that his increase in activity and walking skills most likely contributed to the weight loss and wasn't worried and said it's normal for chubby babies to grow into lean toddlers...especially active ones like my little guy!!

Everything else checked out well and the doctor was pleased with Austin's development so far as well as his walking skills. Austin, of course, was all over the place the entire visit...trying to steal the stethoscope, trying to close the doctor's laptop, babbling and yelling and shaking his fists, flirting with the nurses, throwing books on the floor, trying to get down and walk and just being my sweet curious little guy! Before he left, the doctor asked me if Austin was this active all the time and I got a huge chuckle. YES! He sure is a wild man but I LOVE it! :)

Now to the not-so-fun part...there were 2 shots at the end of this visit and a finger prick. The blood draw was fine and Austin didn't seem to notice, but this was our worst time with shots to date I believe. He was pitiful and so upset in fact that we had to leave without even putting his pants back on. He wouldn't let me put him down for a second so we just walked out of the office in a diaper, t-shirt and tears! I think he frightened some of the kids in the waiting room with his crys and whimpers but by the time we made it to the car he was more fascinated with the 2 band-aids on his thighs than anything else and proceeded to rip them both off before we got home.

Luckily, daddy was home when we got back and made things ALL better. Daddy just has a way of doing that it seems! :)

And in case you were wondering, my little man is still in a size 4 diaper and wearing 12-18 month clothes. He prefers walking to crawling now and is quickly becoming a pro. His favorite word right now is dada and will say it on command, but he will also say mama and bye-bye (which sounds more like bahbahbahbah) when he feels like it. He says "uh" for uh-oh and "ahh" for yay. He's got 4 teeth and working on a nice baby mullet, which Ryan is begging me to have trimmed to no avail. He loves to read and he always points at the babies in his books and babbles something that I'm sure is his word for baby but I have yet to decipher. He loves sound and touch and feel books but his favorite one for me to read is Hand Hand Fingers Thumb. He thinks animal sounds are hilarious and loves to clap and wave bye-bye. His favorite toy is his Busy Ball Popper and his favorite food is a banana. He still doesn't like peas or green beans. He's started taking one sippy cup of whole milk at lunch and still has a morning and night bottle. He prefers his formula to milk but we are slowly and surely making the transition per our doctor's orders. I was going to keep him on his formula for a few months longer but apparently infant formula is not that good for children over a year old and those Next Step formulas gave him terrible gas. He doesn't have any problems with regular milk but he just doesn't like the taste very much. I don't like the taste of milk either, so maybe it's genetic, but we'll try for a little longer before we give up and move to something else. Any ideas on different milks to try or how to get a baby to transition to milk would sure be appreciated!!

I guess that's all for now! Stay tuned for pictures from our great big weekend!!