Two months in

The other day, we took Julius in for his two month checkup. I've been looking forward to this because I was hoping that my pediatrician would finally treat his goopy eye, instead of just leaving it. She says that he has a blocked tear duct, which I think is utter total crap. I believe that he has some sort of infection and I'm really concerned...but she once again told me that they don't treat babies eyes like this, even when they are oozing pus. And she won't even swab it and test it, even if it's ebola, she won't treat it.

Did you ever begin to think that these Docs are taking their concerns about overuse of antibiotics a bit too far?

In the good news/weird news department he has grown. He has grown a LOT. Julius is now a few ounces shy of 15 pounds. At only 2 months, this makes him 100th percentile for weight, and he is also 95th percentile for height. Solely breastfed, he is my own personal liposuction machine. Really, who needs plastic surgeons when you can do it this way?

The only weird bit is that his head is 50th percentile. I'm glad that he is perfectly average, but this means that he is slightly out of proportion, so of course, Mr.Cotta has been making jokes about him now....calling him the Microcephalic Baby, haha. I tell him that isn't funny, cause there are some babies like that, and we know the fear of something really bad happening, but since he also has that slightly nervous tone in his voice, like he's afraid it's true even though he knows that nothing is wrong, I've left him alone to crack bad jokes and mutter to himself in the corner.

I'm more concerned about the fact that the doc said that his little head is getting flat on the left side, and poking out on the right side. He is a little crooked! It appears I am raising Stewie. Hopefully without the world domination ambitions. We've been assigned homework and now I have to make sure he naps/sits and lies down with his head tilted more to the right side. He was favouring the left for a long time, because when the nanny isn't here he's very heavy for me to hold all the time, and I tend to put him in the carseat or lying on the change pad beside the couch, and lean over to him and speak or change him or whatever. Until my back and my abs get stronger, I can't pick him up as much as I'd like. So we're going to work on moving his head a bit and giving him some tummy time....honestly, if he ends up with a helmet, I'll die a little inside, so I hope this works.

Julius also got his first vaccines, and I'm not sure who was more nervous, me or him. I had him nicely doped up on baby Tempra, but he still screamed blue murder. My concern was that he would react like Kaz, who had 10 days of screaming, high fevers and seizures after each pertussis shot. Twelve years ago the vaccines he got were the whole cell pertussis vaccine and he had an extreme reaction, every time. He got the acellular vaccine at age 18 months, and had only a few days of fever and seizing. (Not exactly comforting but better.) Then at age 5, he had only one day feeling terrible and no seizures that I saw...but still I get nervous at even the thought of shots for him. (And for the record he has never had a reaction to any other vaccines or medications. Just the DPT. The MMR was like nothing to him, no problem at all.)

Mac had almost no reaction to any of his vaccines. And so far Julius has had almost none, just crabbiness for the last 48 hours. Different genes? Different body chemistry? No-one researches this, so there is no way of knowing. They assume that anyone who has a side effect or an issue with a vaccine is an extremist, and the whole thing becomes so polarized that no one can ever have a proper discussion. The research becomes politicized instead of scientific and parents like me are left floundering. Very frustrating. So you might be wondering why I ever gave any of my kids another vaccine after witnessing that? Well, the problem is that Kaz was already having respiratory issues as a young baby, including croup and bronchiolitis, and with asthma, a case of whooping cough could be very bad news for him. So I had to weigh the risks and benefits and I figured that he had to keep breathing, and lack of oxygen from whooping cough might cause as many problems as the side effects from the shot against whooping cough. I don't know, I feel guilty about my decisions on this everytime I have to help him with his school work...to this day, I'm still not totally sure I did the right thing.

Which pretty much defines my entire parenting style; aka "Hoping they survive to age 18 in spite of me."

Next post, I'll update you on the house reno plans. *I have to go rotate my kid's head now.

* Errr, that sounds wrong actually, but you all know what I mean, right?