I picked our pediatrician based on her doing her intensive college research project on intergenerational patterns of abuse. She’s a neat lady. We had a follow up conversation about CPS (and the original incident last summer) and her attitude was absolutely inspirational. One of my bigger children was with me and I think the doctor’s attitude was really helpful to our continued processing.

The doctor made it very clear that everyone makes mistakes and this was just a mistake. How do you find out what kind of person you want to be if you never cross the line into being someone you don’t want to be?

I love this doctor.

Turns out the doctor had already gone over to the hospital and said, “Who might have turned in my patient’s mother for pot! That’s not cool!” and the staff over there was confused because that is not their policy. Given that the CPS visit turned out to not be about pot… I feel a little sad about not trusting them more. But this process is hard. Everyone did their job well and appropriately and absolutely everyone involved was respectful towards me and my family. I’m glad CPS shows up to ask the questions they asked us.

So yeah. Such a lovely doctor. I’m grateful for her.

Also, Youngest Child is growing like whoa. At her 2 day old visit she had dropped down to 7 lbs 14 oz. At her one month visit she’s up to 9 lbs 4oz. 26oz in 30 days. Sounds great to me. Her height went from 20″ to 22″. Around 50% for weight, 90% for height.

I find it kind of fascinating that all of my children are so tall. They have all been 75% + for their entire lives with the younger two being 90%+. Neither Noah nor I are that tall. It seems… surprising to me. Noah is dead flipping average for a man. I am an inch taller than “average” for a woman. Why are my kids like the jolly green giant?!

Must be all the damn vegetables. I wonder if I would have been taller if I had eaten better as a child.

I asked about the icy cold hands at night. Doctor said that at this stage she just hasn’t figured out circulation and as long as her core is warm, don’t stress. Put sleeves on her and don’t fret. Ok. I’ve been keeping her in sleeves. Hahahaha on the not fretting part.

She’s my tiny little externalized beating heart. I worry about her.

She barely cried for a few seconds at her shot today. I was impressed. It wasn’t a minute of crying. She just went to sleep because I had been tormenting her by keeping her awake. She hadn’t been crying about the tormenting awakeness. She just grunted at me and whined a little, like she does.

I noticed that I didn’t write that much down about MC’s milestones. I think that a lot of that choice was because I go through these periods of feeling embarrassed about my focus on my children. I know that nonbreeders really don’t give a shit about the minutiae of my children. I know that hearing people talk about their kids is boring. (I can tell my eyes gloss over sometimes when people tell me about their kids… it’s ok to not be fascinated by my children…) But then I don’t remember what month they started using two word phrases and I’m fucking mad at myself for feeling self conscious and not writing it down.

I need to not care what you don’t want to hear about because this data collection spot is useful and I need to take advantage of it.

Speaking of which, MC’s hair now reaches their waist because they really feel inspired by Rose’s hair. They want hair that goes to at least their butt. Sure.

The baby is tiny and vigorous and growing and doing all the important mammal skills.

Oh! Yesterday we had a comedy show diaper change. I was reminded of the fact that I have a huge box of puppy pads. Since the baby is so prolific about emptying the pipes while on the changing table and we are a little sad about having to deal with cleaning up the whole shebang every day… Hey I can solve a problem.

So big sister asked to change a diaper. I asked her to bring a pad, diaper, and wipes to the floor in the living room so it would be a little less hazardous.

This turned into a hilarious experience involving a lot of pulling the baby off the spreading/growing pee puddles and dragging her out of the piles of poop she wanted to kick and play with. It was nice having two kids to help with that experience. It really was fun to watch. Big sister did all the important bits and I gave helpful/snarky advice.

We all got to have a fun time. The baby was so relaxed and mellow through the whole thing. She just blinked up at us like, “What? Y’all act like clearing the pipes is something to fuss about…”

Her head has already expanded by 3/4″. Terrifying noggin.

We are getting in the books for next academic year. Why does this process excite me so much?