A Visit With the Doc

Hi Ace,

Today, you had an unnecessary, but just-in-case check-up with Dr. Butler, who you have been seeing since you came home at eight months of age. She gave you your Pneumococcal vaccine, which made you cry (in fact, you looked totally betrayed and rightly so), but other than that, she was completely impressed by how happy and healthy you are.

You eat well (and better than most kids your age, as far as variety and amount go), you sleep well (12-hour nights and 2-3-hour daily naps), you are super active and burn all the calories you might take in from the occasional treat, and you are talking and singing and exhibiting all the large gross motor skills that you should be like running and jumping and dancing.

Compared to other Filipino babies, you are right smack in the middle in the height and weight categories. Dr. Butler said that everyone in the Philippines loves fat babies, but you are definitely not that. We get lots of comments from people who tell us that you are too small. But, we know that you are small because you eat healthy and you play nonstop. She estimated that you might grow to be five feet, nine inches, which would be about your Daddy's height!

And compared to American babies, you are between the 25th-50th percentile in terms of height and weight, which is on the smaller side, but we all know how much American babies eat!

The only things we need to do, according to your pediatrician, are to keep doing what we're doing and to get you drinking a little more milk.

We feel so incredibly blessed to have such a healthy boy and to be able to watch you grow and develop properly. You make us smile ALL the time because you are just so impossibly cute and full of life.

Love you bud,

Mom