Focus

Let me focus for a moment on my beautiful child that is here living with me, rather than my hypothetical hippy-fetus that I am trying to make.  We have an appointment with The Boy's dietitian tomorrow.  He will get weighed and he will be plotted on that damn chart, and I will have to see the dietitian look up at me with that look like, "It isn't good news lady."  I know it isn't.  I know.  But let us not forget that crazy child that spent the evening jumping off the love seat in the playroom into his bean bag.  Let us not forget that child that has the twinkle in his eye that tells you that he knows so much more than he can communicate.  And let's focus on what an amazing, happy, healthy child he is right now.  And then let's get down to the nitty gritty.  

As I have mentioned here before he grew perfectly normal until 9 months old.  

He weighed 19.1 pounds at 9 months old.  

1 year appt he weighed 19.4 pounds

1 1/2 year appt he weighed 19.14 lbs

2 year appt he weighed 21.4 lbs

2 1/2 year appt he weighed 23.7 lbs

And now we have tomorrow coming up.  I weighed myself on the scale and then myself holding him on Saturday and the difference was only 23.4 pounds.  In terms of percentages and charts, he has pretty much stayed consistently within the 3 - 5% range for his height.  That is what they consider his norm (Mommy is short and Baby Daddy is short, both sets of grandparents are short...basically we don't have much hope vertically for my little dude).  They would like to see his weight follow that pattern as well.  Right around the 2 year appointment is when he "fell off" the charts completely.  He has consistently stayed under the chart since then.  Although from what I have been told up until this point, he was still "arching" underneath the chart.  As long as we are still making an arch then we are good, but if we start to flat line then that is bad.  Considering he is actually going down in weight since his last visit, that seems kinda like a flat line to me.

But tomorrow is not with his actual gastro doctor.  This is with the dietitian who I work with to try and make what he actually eats count.  She monitors how much Pedia.sure he gets and helps me come up with ways to add (or trick) more protein and calories in his diet.  His gastro doctor, and this dietitian previously, have talked to me about putting him on a medication to stimulate his appetite.  I have been resistant to that.  I just strongly feel like I don't want to give my child a daily medication if I don't have to.  Plus, they said the main side effect is that it makes them sleepy.  Well I have a speech delayed and somewhat developmentally delayed child who sleeps just fine.  Adding more sleep into his world?  I don't see how that would be beneficial.  But at our last appointment with this dietitian she explained more about the medication to me.  It is actually just an antihistamine that they discovered, almost by accident, that had the side effect of making kids eat more.  And apparently you only use it for a short period of time.  It's suppose to hopefully get things rolling and then they will hopefully keep it up on their own.  But the body develops a defense to it after about a month and it no longer works for that purpose.  Also she told me that you can just time the doses to give to him before he takes his nap and before he goes to bed for the night.  So that seems do-able now.  I waited before but I think tomorrow I am going to have them write me a prescription for that.  We go back to see his actual doctor for another weigh in during the middle of September, so if I can get him on the medication now, then we can see if it made any difference when he goes back in a month.

So I know that tomorrow I am going to get the look.  I know I am going to hear about the growth curve and "arching" and I know they are going to hold up that piece of white paper with the blue half-circles on it with all the little dots that represent my son.  And I know that we are not where we want to be nor where they want us to be.  But I will grin and bear it and then I will listen.  And I will talk to this expert about how to best take care of this situation and my boy.  And then I will diligently follow any and all instructions that I am given.

But then I will leave all of that and I will come home with my son and watch him give his trains a hug because he missed them when he was gone.  And I will watch him go sit outside beneath the tree so that he can watch the bees and the ants.  And when he puts his scrawny little arms around my neck, that damn curve will be the furthest thing from my mind.