Weight: 22 lbs on the dot (above average)
Height: 28 1/2 inches (average)
Head circumference:  46 cm (above average, “Which is good” my pediatrician said, “so he doesn’t look like a weirdo. Because his weight is above average too.”)

We had a different doctor today, one I had never met before but I immediately liked based solely on the fact that he shares a name with a certain TV sitcom paleontologist. Let’s call him Dr. G. I thought about asking how Rachel was doing but figured it wasn’t good to piss off the guy in charge of sticking my baby with needles. Alas, it didn’t do me any good since he still suggested we finish Baby Evan’s Hep B series AND talked me into the H1N1 shot. You know I was on the fence about it back in October at his 6 month appointment but it became a moo point (like a cow’s opinion)  when the office didn’t have their doses yet. But after The Great Sickness of 2009 (which I’m not totally convinced WASN’T H1N1) I’ll do anything to keep Baby Evan from suffering though another week of misery.

Besides his name, I also liked Dr. G based on his total support of breastfeeding. He said he knew my lactation consultant well, referred new moms to Papoose for support all the time and used to be very active in La Leche League. His own wife nursed their children until they were 2 1/2 and he said as long as I was happy doing it I should definitely continue nursing Baby Evan past a year.  Instead of asking “Where does the baby sleep?” he just asked “How’s the baby sleeping? Do you lay him down on his back?” And hold on to your hats, AP mamas, but he also said bed-sharing was a great idea as long as E and I were comfortable with the situation. He and his wife bed-shared until their son was FOUR (although the story he then told about kicking his son out after he vomited ON HIS FACE one night made me pretty glad Baby Evan likes his crib). He’s my new favorite doctor at the practice and I’m going to make a point of asking for him in the future.

In other news, the trauma of being stuck with TWO GIANT ENORMOUS MASSIVE SHARP HORRIBLE PAINFUL POISON-COATED NEEDLES disrupted Baby Evan’s sleep patten enough that he woke up twice last night. It may also have been because we forgot to feed him any solids yesterday (oops) so he needed the calories. I will not make the same mistake again today, and plan to offer a six-course baby meal tonight (sweet potato, avocado, applesauce, teething biscuit, baby cheese puffs and yogurt) so he’ll be nice and full at 7 pm. Mama likes her sleep.

I guess visiting my parents really gave Baby Evan a sense of where he comes from, because he decided to take part in the long-standing Glidden family tradition of being TERRIBLY HORRIBLY ILL on Thanksgiving. Growing up, someone in our house (usually my sister) was ALWAYS sick on holidays. Thanksgiving? Pneumonia! Christmas? Flu! Easter? Strep throat! Arbor Day? The Plague! National Waffle Appreciation Day? Ebola!

On Wednesday when we got to Ohio we thought the baby was just fussy because of the long car trip. But by 2 am when he refused to be put down even for a second we decided it was more than just fussing. I thought it might be his two top teeth coming through, but when his fever kept getting higher and his wailing kept getting louder, we suspected he might really be sick. E went out on Thanksgiving (thanks People Who Work At The Grocery Store On Holidays!) and bought a thermometer and some infant Tylenol so we could do something – ANYTHING – to help poor Baby Evan feel better. It didn’t work. He spent all day on Thursday alternating between crying himself to exhaustion and passing out from exhaustion only to wake up crying. My entire extended in-law family thinks Baby Evan is a loud, angry, snot-producing machine and feels really really bad for me as the mother of such a difficult baby. For a while I tried to insist he normally wasn’t like this (Read my blog! He’s really good!) but after a while I was too tired to protest and by bedtime I had completely forgotten he had ever been a happy, easy-going child.

If we had been at home during Baby Evan’s First Illness (a milestone I will definitely NOT be putting in the baby book) we would have handled it. I would have been tired, the baby still would have been sick, and it wouldn’t have been over any faster, but it would have been SO. MUCH. EASIER. When you’re a houseguest in a very crowded house, taking care of a sick baby is misery. Thank God E was just as concerned about the baby as I was, because if he hadn’t done his share of nighttime rocking and changing and letting Baby Evan sleep on his chest I may have ended up stabbing a meat thermometer through my hand just for a couple of quiet hours in the hospital.

In the middles of Thursday night his temperature reached 104.5 and I spent two hours waiting for my pediatrician to call me back and insist I take my deathly ill baby to the ER. Instead, a very calm grandmother-type nurse told me a high temp was normal in an 8 month old, he was just fighting off a virus and “he must be your first”. I let her calm me down and her suggestions helped Baby Evan’s temp come down and by Friday morning he started to act more like his normal self.

Now we’re home and he’s so happy to be back in his own bed he may just sleep forever. Well, not FOREVER (And he’s definitely still breathing – I checked. About two dozen times.) but certainly long enough for me to catch up on some of my missing sleep and get started on the pre-holiday decorating clean-a-thon. I’m sure once he realizes there are ornaments to break, ribbon to eat and glitter to roll in he’ll be too excited to ever sleep again.

Length: 26 1/4 inches (50th percentile)
Weight: 19 lbs 15 oz (80th percentile – 75% of which is just in his GIANT THIGHS)
Head circumference: 45 cm (Normal and the flatness has definitely improved)

I discussed both kinds of flu shot with my pediatrician, and she recommended the regular kind but not the H1N1. We actually don’t even qualify for this first round of swine flu vaccines. They’re only giving them to kids over the age of 2 who have a sibling 6 months or younger at home. So all that OMG WHAT DO I DO?!? freaking out ended up being totally unnecessary. Well, only if you would call hours staring at the ceiling wondering if I’m going to poison my baby “unnecessary”. Not like I could have done something more productive with that time, like laundry or exercise or sleep.

My ped assured me we don’t have any H1N1 risk factors (day care, siblings in school, other adults at home) and that if I wanted to reopen the issue in a month we could talk again, but I think I’m just going to drop it. I did go ahead and get Baby Evan the regular flu shot, since he was only due for two other vaccines this month anyway and the flu is NOT something I want to go through with a 6 month old. She also told me the kind of flu shot they give infants comes in a vial containing a single dose of medication, not the kind they draw several doses from, and therefor doesn’t contain any preservatives (like Thermisol, the stuff people worry about) at all. I’d never heard or read that before, which is weird, considering how many terrifying Google searches I’ve performed using the words “vaccine”.

This next paragraph is the part where I’d usually talk about THE SCREAMING and my damaged ear drums and how the baby hates me now. Instead, I’m going to yell about how I LOVE MY MAI TEI CARRIER. After Baby Evan’s exam – but before the shots – I took off his pants and popped him in the carrier facing in so he could see my face and play with my nursing necklace. He got through two of the three shots without even blinking and the last one just got a startled little yelp before he went back to being his normal happy self. The nurse was super impressed and said she was going to recommend a carrier to all the moms during vaccines. I would brag some more about my excellent mothering and comforting skills and my super brave baby but the carrier thing wasn’t my idea. I stole it from someone at breastfeeding group. But she doesn’t read this blog so as far as you know I’m a total genius. Check me out interwebs! Where’s my Nobel Peace Prize?

One of my easiest decisions as a parent so far was the choice to vaccinate my baby. I feel 100 percent confident that protecting him from potentially deadly diseases is my responsibility as a mother and vaccines are a safe, effective way to do that. I’ve done my research (although the internet is a hard hard place to do vaccine research, especially if you’re actually in favor of vaccinating) and I’ve talked to my doctor and I choose my choice. It’s chosen. My blogger friend Brigid posted a video from the CDC a while back addressing some of the concerns and facts about vaccinations in a non-terrifying way. My feelings can basically be boiled down to even though I doubt my baby will ever be exposed to measles or rubella or hepatitis, it’s the herd immunity that prevents epidemics and I’m doing my part. And for the record, I don’t really want to hear about your cousin’s sister-in-law’s best friend’s baby who totally got autism right after his shots. For every anecdote you’ve heard there’s a child who never had a single shot and was still diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. So, like I said, I am on the vaccination train.

Until this H1N1 thing came along. Suddenly I’m not so confident. I don’t know if I want to add another shot to my baby’s 6 month appointment. For myself, no problem. I will probably get both a regular seasonal flu shot and the H1N1 shot. E’s going to get both flu shots as well (the Navy actually requires him to get them). I haven’t had the flu since I was a kid (I get strep every year instead, so if they start vaccinating against THAT sign me up!) and I don’t spend a lot of time in crowded disease-filled places like malls or day care centers, but again, herd immunity! As parents, we’re doing our part.   But my baby doesn’t hang out in those places either. And the info out there on the Swine Flu vaccine is too scary to just dismiss. Younger children need to get two shots instead of one, and Baby Evan is just barely old enough to fall in the 6 months – 24 year suggested age group. Some states are lifting the restrictions on how much mercury can be in the vaccines (I can’t find info for my state but I know California and Washington have). The last time a Swine Flu vaccine was distributed in the 70’s the side effects were terrible and much more widespread than I am comfortable with. I just don’t know what the right choice is this time.

I’m not the only mom who feels this way. One of the mommy bloggers I follow, All & Sundry, just posted something about choosing to get the vaccine (or not). She got almost two hundred comments and every single one made me think “Oh good point!” on both sides. I hope I don’t have to make a decision right away since the vaccine may not be available in time for our 6 month appointment and I’ll get a couple more weeks to think about it. Are you – and/or your children – getting the H1N1 vaccine?

Length: 25 inches (50th percentile)
Weight: 16 lbs 12 oz (75th percentile)
Head: 42.8 cm (50th percentile)

So the chubbiness of his thighs is a medical fact and not just my biased opinion.

I mentioned that the baby’s head is a little flat and the doc said “Meh”. Now that he’s spending less time on his back it should even out on its own, but if I am concerned for “aesthetic reasons” I could get a referral to a specialist. She mentioned the word “helmet” and I immediately decided his flat head is cute and endearing rather than deformed.

He had two shots today, one in each leg, and screamed like a banshee for exactly thirty seconds. By the time I checked out and scheduled his 6 month appointment he was already smiling and cooing at the nurses again. The 60 second car ride home put him to sleep and now he’s passed out in the car seat making all those good antibodies that will keep him from bleeding out his eyeballs or coughing up a lung.