Q's one-year checkup (finally)

After much wrangling, we finally manage to get Q in for her one-year visit to the pediatrician. She’s been officially one for some time now, already downing the whole milk and finding strawberries a revelation. (We now buy them in the two-pound box).

This is to say that we now know her current official stats. They are:

Height: 29“ (50th percentile)
Weight: 18 lb. 6 oz. (12th percentile)

The surprising one, of course, is the weight percentile. Q doesn’t look crazy thin, so we were caught a bit off guard. But since the boy didn’t even make it onto the charts at all for the first several months--and has yet to break through the 20th-percentile barrier--the number doesn’t begin to scare us. And after seeing her tour the room in full-on Q babble, her doctor wasn't worried either. She walks like a pro now and has for a while, which probably explains her svelte toddler figure.

The pediatrician looks her all the way over, and Q looks back hard. She gets two shots (one in each arm now that she's walking), and her head goes purple with crying. (Later, the boy will be jealous of her Band-Aids.) As I settle the co-pay, my wife calms Q with her new favorite toy, her little doll from Vietnam that we've named "Cup be" (pronounced COOP-bay), which is 'doll' in Vietnamese. It works. On the subway home, she devours nearly all of a cinnamon raison bagel and smiles at strangers. Thin and friendly and voracious and healthy--just like her brother.

The Power of Shaving

The (actual, I swear, true) conversation the boy and I have this morning:

Boy: What are you doing, daddy?
Me: I'm shaving.
Boy: Can I see the cream cheese can, please?
Me: You mean the shaving cream can? Sure.
Boy: Why are you doing that, daddy?
Me: My face gets scruffy. When you get older, hair will grow out of your face, too, and then you'll have to shave.
Boy: [with a big grin] Then I'll get everything I want.

Ah, if only that were true.

I don't normally do this, but...

First, let me say that I am in no way associated with any bib manufacturer. I'm just a parent of a messy, messy eater.

Like most new parents, when our boy made the move to solids we fitted him with the cloth bibs that we received as gifts from family and friends. We quickly learned that those that tie can fit better around the neck, but they can be pulled off rather easily. Velcro works well--easy on, easy off--but the sweet potatoes and the peas never really come out.

Then, a revelation. Good friends in our building use a plastic bib when feeding their daughter roughly Q's age. It's a red one with a bottom that turns up to make a little trough to catch what doesn't go (or stay) in. I'd made a loose mental note of it before, but when it came time for the grandparents to shower Q with first-birthday presents, my brilliant wife suggested similar, soft plastic bibs (among other things) for our little food tornado.

We noticed a difference right from the beginning. No more soggy piles of neckware at the end of the day. More important, Q could actually wear her outfit past a meal. And right away she liked the little trough--she still puts cereal and noodles and little bits of sliced pear in there herself to hoard for later.

Thanks again, Grandma & Grandpa. Great gift.

Q = 1

Today Q turns 1. She has made it. And so have we.

We have a party for her consisting of her friends from the building and from rather close by in distance and in age. The adults nurse mimosas, and the little ones simply nurse. The new parents in the small crowd look more than a bit dazed, and my wife and I make a point to tell each other how happy we are that this is the last first birthday that we’ll ever have to celebrate.

First birthdays are actually rather fun to celebrate, though, since they’re basically about the parents. We eat exotic things like quiche and blueberry scones and bagels with full-on cream cheese, things way beyond the “dairy & berry” line that most of the invited kids can’t touch. Not to mention the champagne.

Many pictures are taken.

Q walks well now--has for a month--and incredibly self-possessed she works the room. She wears a deep red corduroy dress and looks good. She tastes cake for the first time and, as expected, doesn’t like it, preferring the balloon plate it arrived on instead. Her brother plays loudly in the corner with a friend from the building, exclaiming at one point through a laugh and a teetering spin in the middle of the room,“Everything is so funny!”

With much energetic support from the boy, we’ve practiced the candle and singing part of the ceremony, but when the real moment arrives Q responds more or less as we expected, looking to bury her face in her mother’s neck by the time we've finished the song and clapped for her. (Her brother broke into outright sobs when facing his first cake and lit candle, for what it’s worth.) The boy gladly blows out the candle on her behalf, and we light it again and again for him and for a few others who want their own turns at making wishes. We distribute the exquisite cake from a local bakery, eating around and under the "Q" in the center. The boy has two pieces.

Though we've requested that no one bring presents, everyone comes with bags and boxes, which give way, up in our apartment after short naps, to dolls and stuffed animals and a music player that she loves to play with and dance to.

As she's standing there, pointing to the new things in the house (and then the old), I think about how we will still mark her time in months for a while longer. But soon she will talk, and one candle will become two; she will acquire a taste for cake. I see so much of my wife in her--her tenacity, her beauty, her self-possession--that I want to tell her stories of who she can be.

For now, though, we celebrate who she is. Happy birthday, Q, little one. We are proud of you. We love you.

P.S. I've been keeping this blog more or less for a year, and for what it's worth I enjoyed revisiting my groggy take on Q's arrival in April 2005.

Spring in New York

Spring has finally arrived--even the protective scaffolding is blue.