So, G’s 4 month checkup was late this afternoon. While this is normally not a problem, today’s doctor appointment had the potential for doom. The little man was an absolute unholy mess this morning, which is pretty odd for the Peanut. We stayed a little bit later than planned at the grandparent’s place last night, which threw off his routine of being in bed by 9:45-10:00. Plus, he really didn’t get his late afternoon nap yesterday. Add that all up, and you’ve got one riled up baby in the morning. For a moment there, I wasn’t even sure we’d get out of the house today.

Regardless, we made it to the Pediatrician’s office for the appointment that we absent mindedly scheduled for 3:30, which is prime napping time. Doh! We were expecting the worse, but amazingly he went from fussy to absolute sweetheart. Of course, this coincided with his doctor entering the room. Is it possible for a 4-month=old to flirt with his pediatrician? We joked about him liking the older ladies, but I really think his time in the NICU created a monster.

4 months means more shots. Words can not express how much I dread this event. At the two month appointment, they ambushed me with the job oh holding the baby in my arms while they administered the pokings. Perfect. Associate daddy with pain. That’s awesome. Who’s the big jerk here? Perhaps sensing my angst, Mommy volunteered to be the holder. Alas, this nurse was more of the “hold ‘em down on the examination table” type, which actually looked worse. She was darn quick though. 1, 2, 3 jabs done before the little guy finished the world’s longest exhale. Man, he did not like that experience. There just isn’t any getting used to your baby crying in pain. Ugh.

On a positive note, our next appointment isn’t for two months because G’s doing fantastic. His growth is perfect, and he’s just hitting the start of some of the 4-month developmental milestones, despite being born 6 weeks early. He even started hinting at a laugh about 4 days ago.

As silly as it may sound, the most exciting part for us was him actually entering the growth curve. We know that it’s not terribly useful at this point to worry about percentiles and such, as he has another 18 months to play catch-up. So we weren’t too bothered at his 2 month appointment when he didn’t really register on the growth curve chart (also known as “below 3rd percentile” or something like that). This go around, he was at the 10th percentile. This is cool for some dorky reason. When adjusted for his “corrected age”, he falls pretty much square in the middle for head and length, and a little low-ish for weight, however playing the percentile game with preemies and corrected age is a notoriously dicey proposition. The most important thing is that the marks on the chart are going up at a steady and rapid pace. Go, little man, go!