Well Baby Checkup

Yesterday I took Benjamin to his twelve-month well baby exam. But I'll write about that at the end, here are some photos first.

Discovering the washer for the first time (yes, it took that long!). He also tried opening the door, which thankfully is locked.

Chasing Calvin around the Christmas tree. Of course, Calvin was long gone by the time the picture was taken.

We have the end table between the couch & the recliner. He can squeeze through on one side, but not the other. Which makes him mad.

He loves this bead maze. Unfortunately, right now he mostly just leans on it to get into a standing position. Those little wires were not meant for that much weight! But he does play with the beads sometimes.

The neat, but massive, gift from Fran that we waited to open until we got back.

Going through the doorway. There is a doorbell with different chimes that he pushes incessantly. Imagine that.

I grabbed some green beans for a snack, and he has to eat whatever Mommy's eating (to the point of grabbing food out of my mouth). We hadn't given him whole green beans yet, but he gnawed away on them and really liked them.

So back to his appointment...the doc said he's doing fine. He is 29 inches long (25th percentile) and weighs 20 lbs 9 oz (15th percentile). She told me not to be concerned about how much he has slimmed down, because that's just what kids at this age do. He seems to have his Daddy's metabolism AND energy! She gave me the green light to take him off of formula (YAY!!!) and start giving him whole milk, preferably in a sippy cup. (Yeah, that's been challenging so far.) Apparently he cut a tooth this week, which we didn't even notice, and another one's about to pop through. Plus the doc said it looks like his molars are on their way, too. Considering all those teeth coming through at once, I have to say he's a trooper! She said it's time to start weaning him off the pacifier...I've been dreading that for a while now. She was very patient with my notepad of questions. I wish we could keep seeing her, but we've been assigned to someone else for next time. After the exam, I took him to get his shots. We created quite the scene in the waiting room afterwards, with him screaming his head off and writhing around. The other babies there didn't know what to make of it! The doc suspected he would not tolerate having labwork done after that, so she let us go back today for that. Mike got to to along this time, and the bloodwork went much more smoothly than the shots. He was still pretty upset, though, and he's taking a nice long nap now.

Oh, I should add...the reason we didn't know he cut a tooth is because he hates us looking in his mouth. He also doesn't like having his teeth brushed. But he loves playing with the toothbrush!