maus + nugget

from babycenter.com

The nugget had his 9-month old well baby visit today. Same thing - weight, length, head circumference. And then the pediatrician shows me some chart and tells me some sort of percentile so that I know where he ranks. But I don't care. I never do. Maybe I should? Should I?

I feel like it is just another opportunity for us to compare our children to each other instead of seeing them exactly for the individual tiny people that they are? Or seeing them as somehow too small or too short or too long or too heavy? We have a whole lifetime to be "too" something - why burden our babies.

But actually, it was not the standard height/head/weight measurement that sent me thinking today but something the pediatrician said. When talking to him about solid foods and the fact that the nugget seems to have quite a mature taste pallette - he was all over feta and clam chowder - he remarked "Oh, yeah, it seems the cautionary advice to stay away from allergy causing foods is not so severe anymore. Still, stay away from peanuts until age 5 and honey and cow' milk until about age 1 but other than that, he can try anything you are eating. Do you have allergies?" When I replied no, he reaffirmed his statement.

Just like that. Science and research does it again - it changes its mind. And we are supposed to worry less and feed them more. I suppose these rules and guidelines come about because someone decides to give their infant coca-cola in a baby bottle or something outrageous like that. But this list of rules of "should not's" is so long for pregnancy and the first year of life - I see mothers turning themselves into knots just trying to get it all right.

And then I go to the pediatrician and he says, "Oh yeah, by the way..."