19 ounces

19 ounces. That's how much my 19 1/2 month old little girl has gained in the past 6 weeks. This is very good news for us, as we've been struggling with weight issues with her and in the previous 6 weeks, she had lost 9.5 ounces.

Yes, I've eaten steaks that weigh more than what she gained this time around, but I'm still considering it a very major accomplishment! Her pediatrician wants to repeat some blood tests (uugghh!) just to be sure everything is still OK, and he said we should now stop catering to her picky eating habits. But, we don't have to take her back for another weight check until her 2 year old checkup (in June), versus every 6 weeks like we've been doing.

The size 12 month pants still fall off her and she's still below 0% on "the curve." But, she's moving in the right direction and this mommy couldn't be happier! She's still my Spectacular Thing in the Not-Quite-As-Small-Anymore package :-)

Good thing, bright red package

Lest anyone think I play favorites... I don't! Yesterday I blogged about my baby, Jessica. Today, I'll write about my other little girl, Rachel. My other good thing, in a bright red package!

During my first pregnancy, my husband and I teased each other a lot about what color hair our first born was going to have. I'm blond, he has dark brown hair and I'm not sure why, but we had a little "competition" going on which of our genes was going to win out. Here's how the delivery went....

I was at the hospital, doing "practice pushes" with the nurse when all of a sudden she shouted, "Stop! She's in a hurry to come out, I need to go call the doctor." In the 20 minutes it took for the doctor to arrive, before we could finish the delivery, the nurse tried to amuse me with small talk. "I can see a lot of hair," she told me. Of course, she couldn't tell what color.

When Rachel made her debut (only 4 pushes later after the doctor arrived -- God bless her for making it so easy on me!), the nurse announced not "it's a girl," but "she's a redhead!" My husband turned to me and said, completely straight-faced, "um, anything you need to tell me?" You could have heard a pin drop in that room as the doctors and nurses stopped cold in their tracks to wait for my response. If you know my husband, you know that this is just his sense of humor, he was making a joke. If you know our family, you know that his cousin has two kids with bright red hair, so Rachel fits right in. The red is not a mystery, we just never considered that blond + dark brown = redhead!

She's so much like me, it's almost scary. She's smart and thoughtful and most important, kind. She's sensitive and emotional and strives to make everyone happy. She's also organized and meticulous and she does NOT like it when her plans don't go her way. Yes, she's Mini-Me.

Rachel is almost 4 1/2 now. She and her sister are total opposites. Rachel organizes, Jessie destroys. Rachel listens, Jessica laughs as she does exactly the opposite of what you tell her. Rachel is respectful of what her father and I say, Jessica makes her own rules. Night and Day, Black and White, these are my girls.

Do I have a favorite? Of course not. They're both my beautiful, perfect, precious little girls. Do I approach them the same? Of course not. They're totally different people, and I know how to parent each according to their own personalities. I love them the same, but I mother them differently. Is that right or wrong? I don't know. But, so far it seems to work for us, so we'll keep doing it.

Here's another picture of my little redhead (who's initials are R.E.D., by the way... a total coincidence since we picked her name months before we knew her hair color). She's playing with her little cousin, who can't seem to get enough handfuls of her bright, pretty hair. Of course, Rachel takes it all in stride and loves how his face lights up when he plays with her.




You know, this post and my last both had "good thing" in the title, but that's wrong... the right word is really "spectacular."

Good thing, small package

She looks so deep in thought, doesn't she? Actually, she's glaring at her sister, who has run off with her ball....

This is Jessica, my baby. She's 19 months old and she's "too little." I realize I'm biased, but I think she's perfect. Unfortunately, her pediatrician does not agree.

Born almost 3 full weeks early, she weighed in at a healthy 6 pounds, 6 ounces. This put her in the 35th percentile for newborns, which was great given that she was early. This means that 35% of newborns are smaller than she was, 65% are bigger. She gained weighed between each of her checkups, but not as fast as other kids. She slipped from 35th% to 15th% to 5th%, where she remained for about 9 months. Then things changed.

From 12-15 months, Jessie-Boo gained only 2.5 ounces. This put her below 0% on "the curve." Great that she had gained, but she gained much less than her "normal" rate. The pediatrician said we needed to start checking her weight every 6 weeks instead of 12. If she continued to gain, even slowly, that was fine.

In the first 6 weeks after her 15 month checkup, she gained 3.5 ounces. Still below 0%, but a gain is a gain. In the next 6 weeks, though, she lost 9.5 ounces. That put her down 6 ounces in the 3 months from 15-18 months. Not a good thing.

The pediatrician checked (for the ump-teenth time) for a heart murmur, no sign of that. Blood tests were next. What a horrible experience, to have 4 people holding down a screaming, frightened little girl to get 6 vials of blood. I'll never forget her scream, or the looks on the faces of the people in the waiting room as we were leaving -- they were full of contempt and accusation that we'd do such a thing to such a tiny little girl.

Results came back: Nothing stands out. She was in the low end of the normal range on 2 things, but nothing worrisome to the pede.

Next, a urine sample. Yeah, right! You try to get a urine sample in a plastic sticky bag from a kid who wears diapers. We have tried multiple times, no luck. The next step is a catheter and I refuse to do that unless there are simply no options left.

Here's another picture of Jessie, taken last night. She weighs 18 pounds, 9 ounces, which is about average for a 9-12 month girl. She's 19 months. I use this picture because these are 12 month pajamas on her... you can see how big they are!





Am I worried about her? Actually, I'm not. Not about her health, anyway. We're not a big family. I'm just under 5'6" tall and on a fat day, I weigh in at 115 pounds fully dressed and soaking wet. My sister (who is 25) still buys most of her clothes in the children's department. My husband is the same height as me, and none of the women in his family are taller than 5 feet. I think that Jessie-Boo just happened to get the small genes, a super-high metabolism, and is just meant to be little. There are a lot worse things in life!

She has more energy than I've ever seen, she's a happy-go-lucky kid. She's cute and smart and funny and mine. In my eyes, she's perfect.

I'll continue to keep her on a high-calorie diet. I'll continue to check her weight and monitor her growth. But I'll also continue to know in my heart that she's just fine, she's just little. She's my good thing in a small package.

The Good, The Bad and The (hopefully not so) Ugly

My husband often asks me, "which do you want first, the good news or the bad news?" I usually ask for the bad news first, with the hope that the good news is so good, the bad news won't matter. Today, though, I'll start with the good news first, because it's just too good to wait for!

As I've posted before, I'm working on a goal to "Be a Non-Smoker." Yesterday was my last day as a smoker. Today, I am a non-smoker. Wow, that was easy... yesterday I was a smoker, and today I am not. Clearly, it remains to be seen if I'm still a non-smoker this afternoon, and tomorrow, and next week and next month, but at least for right now, in this moment, I am a non-smoker.

Unlike with weight loss (something I know a lot of people struggle with and may be able to relate to more than smoking), I can just "declare" myself a non-smoker and as long as I don't light up, then I get to be just that. With weight loss, I can't just declare myself thin and be done with it. For me (as a smoker), this is the good news... I say it, and it's done! Easy as pie.

Of course, there's bad news, too... it's not really as simple as "just don't light up" anymore. Even with The Magic Pill I'm taking to help me, I still feel the signs of withdrawal (headache, inability to concentrate as much for a long period of time, etc.) and the habits are ingrained (reach for a smoke when I get in the car, when I'm hungry, before a long conference call is about to begin for work, etc.). So, the bad news is that I still have to work at not lighting up, and I know it'll be a rough row to hoe, but I'm ready!

With The Good and The Bad usually comes The Ugly, which may well be how I'm acting a few days from now (Quit Day 3 has historically been the hardest for me). However, for now I choose to focus on The Good (I'm a non-smoker) and will mitigate The Bad (cravings and withdrawal) as it comes, in order to avoid The Ugly. Look how much progress I've made already:

Within X time after my last cigarette (last night at 10:02pm):

• 20 minutes - My blood pressure, pulse rate, and the temperature of my hands and feet all returned to normal.
• 12 hours - My blood oxygen level has increased to normal and carbon monoxide levels have have dropped to normal.

And I've got this to look forward to:

• 48 hours - Damaged nerve endings will have started to regrow and my sense of smell and taste will begin to return to normal.
• 72 hours - My entire body will test 100% nicotine-free and over 90% of all nicotine metabolites will now have passed from my body. I can also expect the symptoms of chemical withdrawal to have peaked in intensity. My bronchial tubes will have begun to relax thus making it easier to breathe. My lung capacity will have also started to increase.
• 10 days to 2 weeks - My body will have physically adjusted to again functioning without nicotine and the more than 3,500 chemical particles and 500 gases present in each and every puff.
• 2 weeks to 3 months - My heart attack risk will have started to drop. My lung function will have started to improve.
• 3 weeks to 3 months - My circulation will have substantially improved. Walking will have become easier. Any smoker's cough will have disappeared.
• 1 to 9 months - Any smoking related sinus congestion, fatigue or shortness of breath will have decreased. Cilia will have regrown in my lungs, thereby increasing their ability to handle mucus, keep my lungs clean, and reduce infections. My body's overall energy will have increased.
• 1 year - My excess risk of coronary heart disease will have dropped to less than half that of a smoker.
• 5 to 15 years - My risk of stroke will have declined to that of a non-smoker.
• 10 years - My risk of death from lung cancer will have declined by almost half . My risk of cancer of the mouth, throat and esophagus will have decreased.
• 15 years - My risk of coronary heart disease will be that of a person who has never smoked.

Source: WhyQuit.com