Today the girls turned nine months old. We’ll be posting pictures and an update for the month in a day or two. The girls went to the doctor’s office for their nine-month checkup. Miranda is 17 lbs, 2 oz and 27 3/4 inches. Eleanor is 17 lbs, 10 oz and 28 1/2 inches. This means that compared to their six month doctor’s visit, Miranda has caught up a quarter inch compared to Eleanor.
While their height remains above average, their weight has dropped below the fiftieth percentile. We were told this is natural though, because kids tend to become more active around now and start to slim down. It certainly matches what we’ve noticed in what the girls look like. They’re still chubby, but just a bit more slender. This also places Eleanor a scant half inch from being too tall for our Graco Snugride infant carseats. Over the last three months, she grew 1 1/2 inches, so it’s possible that she’ll be at the absolute limit of the infant carseats when we take our cross-country trip in a month. We’re still unsure which carseats we’ll be taking with us on that trip.
This doctor’s visit was the first one where there was only one of us with the girls. Agnes found out yesterday that she couldn’t get off work, and we decided not to reschedule the appointment. This meant a few changes in logistics. Instead of carrying in the girls in their carseats, I used the Snap n Go. Instead of stripping down both of them to their diapers and weighing them, I undressed Miranda first, and left Eleanor strapped into her seat, while Miranda was weighed and measured. I then strapped Miranda back into her seat in nothing but a diaper, and then repeated the process with Eleanor. It felt weird to have both of them in their carseats in just their diapers, but fortunately, I also had blankets with me to make sure they didn’t get cold.
The pediatrician wasn’t concerned about Miranda’s rash. She agreed with what we were doing–keeping the skin clean and moisturized. She said that a bit of over-the-counter 1% hydrocortisone would be okay as well. She didn’t seem to think that our restriction of Miranda’s diet was all that necessary, but we’ll continue it for a while anyway to see if there is any improvement.
Fortunately, for this visit, neither Eleanor or Miranda were sick. At our last appointment, it caused us to have to reschedule our shots and we never had a chance to do the well-baby sorts of things where the pediatrician asks about development and informs us of what we can expect between now and the next doctor’s appointment. For this visit, we talked about the kinds of things the girls were doing in terms of speech, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, and eating habits. Our pediatrician reminded us that now is the time to do our baby-proofing, and she warned us against ever trying to handle two kids with one parent anywhere near water this summer. There’s too much of a risk of a drowning.
Unfortunately, I have no pictures from this doctor’s visit. I had my hands full juggling the two girls, and I neglected to bring the camera altogether. We’ll catch them again at the doctor’s office at their one-year appointment.