Maia at 2 years

Maia had a slightly delayed 2-year exam with her pediatrician, Dr Olgren. When I went to pick her up from daycare, and told her that we were going to the doctor's office, she was very excited, clapping and jumping up and down.

Here are the stats:
Weight: 24 lbs, 4 oz = 18%
Height: 34 3/4" = 68%
BMI: 14.1 = 3%

She was proclaimed "tall and skinny" by her pediatrician, who assures me that while she might be concerned with some children, it was more than clear to her that Maia's lower weight is no indication of any problems with health or development. She is well ahead of the curve verbally , socially, and with many of her gross motor skills (i.e., jumping in place, climbing stairs one at a time and with alternating legs). Clearly, she is an active kid, and just burns through those calories more quickly. As such, although it might usually be suggested to move a child at this age from whole milk to 2% to reduce some of the unnecessary fat intake, she recommended keeping her on whole milk for a while yet. Clearly she is using the extra fat and calories. I assured her that Maia eats more than I would expect for a toddler (often eating more than her 7-year-old cousin eats), however, there is a general lack of cruciferous veggies in her diet (she will eat some lettuce, but not spinach/broccoli/cauliflower, etc.) We talked about adding vitamins. Iron is not a worry based on her diet (she loves eggs, and does eat red meat a few times a week), but we did discuss the general population's major vitamin D deficiency. And so I was encouraged to find a children's vitamin with a good D ratio.

I am happy to do that, but I chose not to share with the doc that I don't put sunscreen on my kids for every outing as is generally suggested so that they can get some natural sunlight for their health. I recognize that my kids are pale and red-haired, so they are likely to burn easily. So, of course, I gladly slather them with sunscreen during extended outdoor outings and during the most intensely sunny times of the day.

The exam also required the completion of an autism questionnaire, some example questions are below:
Does your child...
- enjoy being swung, bounced on your knee, etc.? (since birth!)
- take an interest in other children? (absolutely!)
- pretend (i.e, take care of dolls, talk on play phones)? (absolute conversations on her phones!)
- bring objects to you to show you something? (and gets frustrated when we don't look)
- imitate you? (a little too much!)
- look at your face to check your reaction when faced with something unfamiliar? - Now this is an interesting question. She does, sort of... but our general reaction is also monitored, along with her own internal assessment (you can almost see her little gears turning).

The end of the exam was a blood test for lead (I made sure they did this one since we live in an older home, and will certainly ask them to re-do it if we do any remodeling or paint scraping). This was a toe-prick, and she did fine with it. Just a little "ouch" and then she just laid back on the table and played with her toy while the nurse obtained the blood sample. Maia took a mild interest: whass she doin down dere? Fortunately, she tested with no lead in her blood.

Then, three shots. She's always done so well with immunizations, I didn't really expect her to have a problem with them this time, but she was absolutely stunned and cried quite a bit this time! It actually took quite a while to settle her down. She whimpered and whined until she got re-settled in her classroom at daycare (complete with a breakdown in the parking lot, when one of her teachers, leading the early preschool class on an outdoor adventure, asked her why she was crying. Given the audience - I think she just turned up the drama a few more notches!). She told them all I don' wanna littoh coke! (= poke) and made sure to tell them about her band-aids. She also told the teacher she needed something to chew on - which is a left-over from brief phases of biting. When she bit a friend (or herself), she was often given a cold teething ring, which was particularly appropriate for her, since her biting sprees tended to coincide with the arrival of new teeth. Fortunately, she's set with all her age appropriate teeth. Soon we'll have to arrange a trip to the dentist! I'm still waffling on whether I want to bring her to our dentist, or a pediatric dentist. Office hours may eventually be the deciding factor.

So. Comparison from her 12 month stats? She has grown 5 1/2 inches in the last year. She has gained slightly under 5 pounds in that same year.

There is a commonly held belief that you can predict the adult height of a child by doubling their height at two years old. Should that hold true for Maia, we can expect her to be around 5' 8" - which is about 2 1/2" taller than me (I'm 5' 5 1/2"). I'd guess maybe 5' 6 1/2" or 5' 7" (I think I'm about 1 or 1 1/2 inches taller than my mom), but I suppose it's reasonable. We will just have to wait and see!