Milestones

These pictures make me really happy:

Under normal circumstances I’d be like “why you gotta eat my blueberry muffin?”, my full-fat blueberry muffin. Every time I order a blueberry muffin they’re like “regular or reduced fat?” and I’m thinking well, if I wanted a reduced fat muffin I’d order a reduced fat muffin. And when I order my iced latte don’t ask me if I want skim milk. If I wanted skim milk I’d say “hey, can I please have an iced latte with skim milk?”  I do however appreciate when you ask me if I want whipped cream. I’m not going to order it but but how can I say no to that fluffy deliciousness? With caramel drizzle. Mmmmmm drizzle.

As I was saying: this makes me really happy. Let’s backtrack about 2 months to Lisi’s 9-month well visit. Our pediatrician has those ages-and-stages questionnaires.  It’s just a bunch of questions to see how well your kid is developing. I usually don’t mind filling them out since my kids have done fairly well on them in the past, and who doesn’t like acing an exam? I started going down the list. She was rocking the communication, gross motor and fine motor sections. When I saw “personal social” I thought we would breeze through it as well. Or not.

1. While your baby is on her back, does she put her foot in her mouth?

No.

2. Does your baby drink water, juice, or formula from a cup while you hold it?

She’ll hold my boob. Does that count?

3. Does your baby feed himself a cracker or a cookie?

No.

And then I started thinking. She doesn’t feed herself at all. She never puts things in her mouth. At this age, Judah’s greatest source of nutrition was acorns, sand, twigs and the occasional water balloon. So I said something to the doctor. It was one of those moments where, as I was saying it out loud, I was thinking: what am I complaining about? So my kid doesn’t put anything in her mouth? That’s great! The doctor didn’t seem too concerned.

That was Annie at 5 months

 

A month went by. I took a look at the 10-month questionnaire.

She STILL won’t do any of those things! Generally I’m not the person to run and call the doctor, but I knew we didn’t have any visits scheduled for while and this was something that MUST get taken care of. At some ungodly hour I was slightly frantically explaining to the doctor that she won’t put anything in her mouth. Like I’ll put a cracker in her mouth and she’ll inhale it. Then I’ll put it in her hand and she would get frustrated that she’s staring at this delicious cracker and just doesn’t know what to do with it. I would guide her cracker-filled hand into her mouth and she would just tense up. It was weird.  The doctor agreed it was weird but he wasn’t particularly concerned. He suggested making her feed herself at a time when she was really hungry. The next morning as soon as I heard Lisi stirring, I excitedly jumped out of bed and ran for this freeze-dried fruit she’s kind of obsessed with. Her eyes bugged out when she saw them but nothing. I picked it up and her mouth started following my hand and then I put it in her hand. She looked at it and cried the saddest cry. I finally fed it to her. I totally failed.

 

 

Wrong!!! Not sure what happened that day but when we were at the park I saw her sitting there with a mouthful of twigs. I was so relieved. So looking back…. I may have overreacted. But seriously, what kid doesn’t put stuff in her mouth!?!?! It’s so easy to look back at pictures and compare kids — one might walk at 10 months the other at 16, one might talk at 1 year and the other at 2.5 (hey, Judah!), one might be toilet-trained at 2 and the other might not even start until 3 (um, hi again, Judah). Does any of this REALLY matter?

Lesson to take away from this? Next time, buy 2 muffins.