Closing in on 12 Pounds
Greetings to everyone.
We got a surprise check in the mail, a refund from Apria, the company that supplied Xavier's oxygen tanks last summer. They reviewed our file and found we had overpaid about $116.00. We were excited to see Apria reimburse us. Immediately, Rebecca had the money spent!
We went out and found a high chair for Xavier. It's a nice one; the seat can be removed and used as a booster seat later. Of course, it was a little more than the refund, but not that much more. We put it in the cart and headed for the checkout.
Xavier likes the chair, and it's easier to have him join us at the table while we eat. In the last couple of weeks, Xavier has had a "quantum leap" in some development skills. He sits up on his own and is very stable. He is also about to figure out the whole crawling thing--he is so close! The high chair allows him to sit rather than recline, which annoys him now that he has a good command of sitting up.
Xavier had a checkup today. We thought it was his 9 month checkup, but we were mistaken. We learned that, just because he turned 9 months and had an appointment (for his RSV shot), it would automatically be his 9 month check up and exam. Nope, we learned we had to actually and explicitly schedule his 9 month exam. Armed with that knowledge, we have scheduled him for next week.
We do have a new weight for him as of today. It's an impressive number given his recent weighings. He is now at 11 pounds, 15.6 ounces. That's about a three-quarter pound increase in the last ten days. Glory to God! Rebecca has been pulling her hair out trying to get him to eat the amounts the doctors want him to eat. Xavier, however, is having none of it; he eats what he wants, when he wants. Rebecca's newest trick, which is generally successful, is to wake him up and feed him before he becomes fully awake and distracted by every shiny object or noise. Speaking with the PA who saw him today, she told us "he's not on the average curve, but he is maintaining his own curve." That is Xavier's story for the last year!
Sitting in his Johnny Jump-up, Xavier squeezes a slice of banana in his fist. Off to the side and vigilant, but out of frame, Lena the Dalmatian waits for him to drop something to the floor. Lena has been really good around Xavier, but this was a lesson to us to not leave her unsupervised when Xavier has food. It was one of those "aha" moments for us.
Here, Xavier demonstrates how to properly smooch a banana slice on the table of his new high chair. Later, he will try to pound it into the plastic tray top. Failing that, he will drop several slimy chunks into the seat.