25th Percentile!

For parents who were taught as children to place a great deal of importance on their report cards, the periodic, regularly scheduled doctor’s checkup provides the analogous experience projected onto our teeny offspring. At every visit, the nurse measures the kid’s head circumference, length, and of course, weight. Yesterday was Naomi’s 18-month-old visit, and after struggling along since January in the 7th (seventh!) percentile for weight, we have finally succeeded in chunking the kid up to the 25th percentile. Hooray!

There was something about being in the bottom ten percent that made us feel like we were seriously failing at our parental jobs. The doctor, however, kindly chalked it up to the four bouts of horrible stomach flu the bunny endured in the late winter. Further good news- her chronic ear infection is cleared up, so no ear tubes for the bunny! Her height is holding steady at the 50th percentile, and her melon head is still riding high in the 95th percentile. My mom is quick to assume that is both cause- and effect-related to how smart her granddaughter is, ignoring the fact that her granddaughter’s father and mother both have big giant (though not particularly smart) heads of their own.

The nurse also ran through a list of things Naomi should be able to do, and I was a little flattered at the way she breezed through it- I took this to mean she was sure Naomi was doing fine. Can she stack blocks? Does she have at least 20 words? She asked whether Naomi can stand up and sit down when we tell her to, and we both looked at each other and wondered, can she do that? Because we haven’t really ever told her to stand up or sit down, that we could remember.

Anyway, here are the milestones of the past few months that the nurse didn’t ask us about. Some are charming. Some are not as charming.

• Naomi likes to put imaginary sunscreen on us. When we are cooking (me), playing the piano (the maestro), sitting around, whatever, she comes up and starts rubbing the stuff onto our legs.
• Naomi can count to…two. Which in a way is not much better than not being able to count at all, and in a way is kind of a huge difference, really. She also likes to march around the house shouting “1-2! 1-2! 1-2!” If she has two similar items in her hands, she will look at them both and say “Two cups!” Of course, she thinks five comes after two. So we have not applied for her mensa card yet.
• She knows yellow, red, blue, green, and purple, and I suspect also brown, white, and pink. Orange is a toughie, for some reason.
• If I am on the computer or Jim is playing the piano, she will take our fingers and tug us away from our chairs, saying “Daddy, all done. Mommy, all done.” Meaning, we are done doing what we were doing, and it’s time to stop it and start playing with her. Sheesh.
• Luna the dog is in constant attendance whenever Naomi eats (or does anything, pretty much), and for reasons I am not that clear on, Jim likes to loudly send her away or scold her. Every so often, we will hear a much smaller voice saying, in the same stern tone, “Loooonha, NO! No no!” Luna minds Jim about 40% of the time; she minds Naomi 0% of the time.
• Naomi has learned the second line of “Twinkle, Twinkle.” Instead of singing it, though, she recites it over and over, all mashed together, with a lot of emphasis on the last word. So it sounds like “UpabahwodsoHIGH! UpabahwodsoHIGH!”
• Occasionally, Naomi will sit down and open a book, and begin gabbling away, very earnestly, as though she were reading the book aloud. Her voice is weirdly monotone and none of the stuff that comes out of her is recognizable as words. It only lasts for twenty seconds or so, but it is pretty engrossing.
• After a trip to the zoo, where we saw an armadillo in the nocturnal exhibit, Naomi fell in love with the word. Armadillo! Armadillo!
• In addition to endlessly pretending to feed us, her animals, and herself, Naomi now pretends that she or her animals have owies that require the application of imaginary ice. This gives you some idea of what goes on in her hardscrabble daycare world…
• Sometimes when we put Naomi to bed, she says, “Bye, Honey!” Hee.