Drum Roll Please

We had our two month well-baby appointment today (Friday), which is a funny thing – really – because I spent the entire time worried about getting sick. Before I even entered the joint I decided that I would touch nothing, which turned out to be impossible. Clipboard, pen, chair – even the air seemed thick with germs.

Trying to find a place to change a diaper in a pediatrician’s waiting room is like looking for a missing baby sock in a mound of laundry. I decided that my best option was the fold down table in the bathroom – the kind with the Koala bear that I normally avoid like the plague – just think of the hundreds of poopy diapers that have been changed on that one spot. It can’t be sanitary.

A toddler girl, her head a nest of blond curls and two lines of snot streaming from her nose came running up to us squealing “BABY!” I was forced to shoot her my most evil “I-am-a-witch-and-I-will-eat-you-for-dinner” look, which stopped her flat in her tracks and sent her wailing back to her mom. “But I want to TOUCH the BABY!” I tried to give the mom my most understanding, friendly smile I could muster, but she just stroked her daughter’s hair and said “We don’t know what’s wrong with the baby, honey. You need to stay here with me.” What’s wrong with the baby? Look lady, your kid’s the one with bright green glaciers flowing out her nostrils.

My own fear of pediatricians’ waiting rooms aside, the appointment went well.

For those waiting with baited breath, Sawyer weighed in at a whopping 13 ½ pounds. He’s 23 ¾ inches long and falls into the 80th percentile for both height and weight. The doctor assuaged my fears that the little guy is becoming the Good Year blimp. “He’s a tall baby and he’s the right weight for his height,” he said. His also has a perfect head, which seems like a funny thing to say but apparently head growth is the most sensitive indicator of development and it’s important that it be not too big and not too small.

The bad news about having a large baby is that the bigger they are the harder it is for them to sleep through the night. They have poor gas mileage I guess. Sawyer still wakes up three to four times between 8 pm and 8 am. Doc said I shouldn’t let him cry it out until six months, but that seems like a long time to me. At the same time, I’m not exactly ready to start pushing him now, since he’s still sleeping in the same room as us and I don’t know if we could withstand the sobs. I really don’t mind getting up and its amazing to me how refreshing three straight hours of sleep can be. I was surprised to learn that 60 percent of 2 month olds actually sleep through the night – which means that they go a 12-hour stretch without waking up.

Sawyer got three shot cocktails in his thighs, poor guy. I felt bad for him, but I got a kick watching him take the grape-flavored Tylenol, which was the first taste other than my milk he’s had. He kept smacking his lips with the most peculiar expression on his face.

Now he’s cranky and sleepy, resting traumatized on my shoulder. Who knows, maybe we'll sleep through the night.