Phoebe's 4 month check up

As is fairly common with my babies, Phoebe has put on a delicious—seemingly unprecedented—amount of weight in a few short weeks. 

She is now fifteen pounds. Fifteen!

Well, 6798.21 grams, so not quite fifteen pounds. But almost!

I feel shocked, perhaps because Alexander remained tiny so long, probably on account of his severe-severe, throat-damaging reflux. Phoebe, like all my children, also has reflux but not so badly that it's keeping her from putting on weight. Clearly.

The doctor got to witness Phoebe do a tiny little urp accompanied by a tiny amount of spit up. 

"Is that normal for her?" the doctor asked.

"To spit up like this?" I shrugged. "Sure."

"That was quite a bit. Is that her normal amount?"

"Well, it's a normal small amount. She often spits a lot more than this."

"But after she spits up she's still happy like she is now."

"Typically."

"She doesn't scream about it?"

"No."

"Then there's probably nothing we'll do for it since she's happily growing. Medication won't stop her from spitting up. It will only make it..."

"...less acidic. I know."

Conversations like that are fundamentally useless. But they also make me feel a teensy bit better about how frazzled I feel trying to keep her in dry clothes while mopping up all the messes she makes on the floor, and keeping on top of the laundry (which, I'll be honest, has fallen more under Andrew's purview recently). We deal with a lot of spit up. 

But not so much that Phoebe is struggling to get enough calories. She's doing just fine in that department. 

Let's see...at four months...

Alexander was 13 lbs. 11 oz.
Zoë was 14 lbs. 8.5 oz.
Benjamin was...an anomaly (12 lbs.).
Miriam was 6850 grams (the only baby to tip the scale over 15 lbs. by four months).
Rachel was 14 lbs. 3 oz.

I know (or at least, given my experience, imagine) that her growth will soon slow down considerably in the near future. She'll develop new hobbies that will make eating seem boring—things like crawling and getting into everything—and all these calories she's been storing up will be used to grow tall, tall, tall. 

Not to be cliche, but these babies just grow so quickly!

One day, they're your sweet 14 lbs. four-month old, and the next thing you know they'll be14 years old and are borrowing your clothes (except for your shoes; she won't be able to borrow your shoes because her feet will be significantly larger than yours) and you'll be left wondering what happened to the time.

Speaking of which...

I took Phoebe in for her 4 month check up this morning, obviously. She's growing fine, obviously. She got another set of vaccinations, which made her feel pretty grumpy, but the appointment went smoothly overall. It was great! 

At the end of her appointment I loaded her back into her carseat, turned on the van, and glanced at the clock.

Amazing! The whole experience had taken about a half hour!

It certainly felt like it had been longer than that, but everyone knows that waiting at the doctor's office is inherently boring (particularly when you're juggling a baby, who is completely un-entertained by toys and books and songs and only wants you to walk, walk, walk—pace that floor, momma!) so you can't read or anything. Plus, this baby is heavy so pacing the floor sometimes feels longer than it otherwise might, due to the fact that my arms feel like they're going to fall off. 

But, it was a short appointment, so that was good. Must be a super-efficient office!

I had been worried about squeezing in all the morning schoolwork, but we'd have plenty of time to get things out of the way before lunch. No problem-o!

We arrived home. Benjamin met me in the garage and offered to carry our hulking baby into the house, so I let him (she's got excellent head control now and I still had to gather the diaper bag and things) and then we settled into our lessons. 

I had left the kids a list of things to do and Andrew had done his best to shepherd them through their tasks, but they're sneaky little things, aren't they? Benjamin's math was multiple-choice style so he "finished" by simply...selecting random answers...but he could show his Daddy he'd done his assignment, right? Andrew didn't check over his work; he just saw it was done and was like, "Yay! We're gettin stuff done!" 

Andrew's working during the day, so that's fine. But it did mean that I had to call Benjamin back to re-do his math work before moving on to our group reading (which right now is multiple translations of Eugene Onegin) and other activities. Miriam needed some help with her math as well—FOIL! So she was at the table doing math, and Zoë was nearby working on her math and, to make a long story short, we were basically in the middle of a math fest when I glanced up at the clock and gasped in horror, "Eleven o'clock?! How is it already 11:00?! I just got home! It can't be!"

Everyone assured me that it was, in fact, past 11:00, which explains why Alexander was begging for a snack.

I'd literally told him no because he'd had breakfast just before I left and I hadn't been gone that long! Phoebe's appointment was over by 9:45. I remember because I got in the van after the doctor at 9:45...oh, wait...

That couldn't be right because Phoebe's appointment had been at 9:45. How could I have returned to the van at 9:45 if her appointment was at 9:45? 

I ran through my morning. 

Phoebe woke up at 6:00. Andrew got up with her (though reportedly she went back down at 7:30 or so). 

I woke up at 8:20 and got dressed, helped little people with breakfast stuff, gave instructions to the kids for while I was gone, and made a list of assignments for them to work on. 

At 8:50 I woke up Phoebe, who was sleeping with Andrew, and gave her a quick little bath because she'd fallen asleep around a fire pit last night and still smelled like a spring barbecue.

By 9:00 I was gathering up the diaper bag, loading Phoebe into the van, and giving out hugs to my children who aren't used to anyone leaving the house ever, so panic whenever someone does.

By 9:15 I was pulling out of the driveway.

I arrived at the clinic around 9:30, parked, walked in, checked in, filled out some forms. Sat down, nursed Phoebe for a bit. Walked back to our room, undressed Phoebe, walked her out to be measured, went back to the room, nursed Phoebe for a bit. Talked to the doctor, helped Phoebe stay calm for her examination. Waited for the nurse. Helped hold Phoebe down for her vaccinations. Soothed a screaming Phoebe (ironically not by nursing), got her dressed, walked back to the van, loaded her in, hopped in myself, turned on the van, looked at the clock.

9:45! Sweet! Such an efficient office visit! We'd have so much time to get our homeschool work finished...but now how is it 11:00?! I lost an hour somewhere...

"Wait a minute," I said. "I was gone for much longer than I thought I was, wasn't I? Closer to an hour and a half than a half hour, huh?"

"Yeah," Andrew said. "You were gone for quite a while."

"We haven't changed the clock in the van yet, have we?" I asked.

"Guess not."

So, Daylight Saving Time happened. We haven't changed the clock in our van. I lost an hour of my life again today. I spent quite a bit of time waiting at the doctor's office (though they are, in reality, rather efficient they aren't that efficient) and we spent the rest of the day catching up on our lessons.