Friday, August 21, 2009

Four-Month Stats

I took Lucy to the doctor's office today for her 4-month well baby visit. I decided, for the first time, to leave her infant car seat in the car, and just carry Lucy and the diaper bag with me. Lucy alone = a little heavy. Lucy + 20-odd pound car seat = so heavy my arms may fall off. In fact, I have calluses on my palms, and black and blue marks from bumping the seat on my legs as I struggle to carry it every day. Yeah, the baby + car seat set up is either that heavy, or I'm that weak.

Turns out, it really is that heavy. For, as suspected, Lucy has officially surpassed the 15-pound mark. The numbers:

Weight: 15 lbs 5 oz (90%)
Height: 25 inches (75%)
Head: 16 inches (75%)

She may be a heavy-weight, but she's long, too. Crazy that short lil' ol' me birthed such a giraffe. Which I realize is not an appropriate analogy, as Lucy's neck with all it's scrumptious, hard-to-clean creases, is one of the shortest parts of her.

She's healthy as a horse (what is with it with my animal comparisons tonight?), and there are no concerns. The doc suggested we keep giving Lucy her reflux meds for the next two months, then maybe see if she can do without them at her 6-month appointment. I smiled and nodded, but inwardly snickered a "yeah, right" at that. If she's anything like Finn, she'll be dealing with reflux for many months to come. Sigh.

We've also, of course, been given the go-ahead to start solids whenever we want. But honestly, I don't want to go to the effort yet, so we will be holding off for at least another month. Having done the whole spoon-feeding thing with Finn, the novelty has worn off, and I'm in no rush to add one more duty to the whole post-work, pre-bedtime routine.

Other random updates/thoughts that are not worthy of their own blog posts:
- M. and I are reaching the point of deciding we need a bigger car for our bigger family. We've been holding steadfast to our two small Saturn sedans, with their excellent mileage and relatively low (one is 10 years old, so not THAT low) maintenance costs, but don't think we can hold out much longer. I am, as so many other young moms before me (can I call myself young? Is 32 young?) morally opposed to driving a minivan. Unlike so many of those other young moms, though, I am determined not to cave in. We are mostly interested in some of the smaller SUVs, like the Subaru Forester or the Honda CRV. What do you drive, and do you like it? Does it have enough room for you?

- We are planning a family vacation with my entire family next summer to celebrate my grandparents' 60th anniversary. An unimaginable number of us will descend upon 3 large beach-front houses in Nags Head, NC. It will be chaos, and lots of fun. We would like to drive to NC, thus we now have a goal of purchasing the above-mentioned new car before next July 17th.

- I made the mistake of telling Finn that a) we are going to the beach next summer, and b) we are going to buy a new car before we go to the beach next summer. He now talks everyday about how we're going to buy a new car and go to the beach tomorrow. He has, cutely, even told his friends at school about it. Time is apparently still an elusive concept for him. And I'm going to be talking about this trip ad nauseum for the next 11 months...

- Tomorrow our babysitter is coming to watch Lucy for a few hours while we take Finn to the county fair. Or at least, that's the plan, which I again stupidly told Finn about ahead of time. Good old Hurricane Bill or whatever it is that's causing all these torrential rainstorms right now may interfere with those plans. If so, I'm going to have one disappointed little boy on my hands. Maybe if we're feeling brave, and anything good is playing, we could take Finn to his first movie theater show instead. Am I that brave? I'll let you know.

9 comments:

  1. Love my Ford Escape (which is apparently one of the most popular cars being purchased in this cash for clunkers) it's way hipper than that Honda CRV:) no offense to anyone

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  2. Minivans are great - I swear! And with your parking in your townhouse complex it makes sense. Also, it is unbelievable that Lucy is BIGGER than her almost 12 month old cousin.

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  3. Love my Rav4. Being toyota, it is very reliable and well made.Suprising amount of room in the back seat. We looked at other small suvs, but decided that the rav was the way to go. One thing to keep in mind is with the small suvs, you sometimes can only do two car seats....we can only fit two in the rav.

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  4. Well I suppose I am not in the category of 'young' mom but I am a mom and was morally opposed to the minivan as well. We had an SUV for while (we ditched it once I got pregnant with DS1). I hated it. It drove like a truck, was uncomfortable on long drives (we drove it to VT) and it had little storage. Seriously little to NONE. I was sold on the minivan the moment I drove it. Smoother ride, lots more space and easier to see behind you when driving. Gas mileage not great but most SUV suck too.

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  5. I'm with you on the mini-vans. I've been researching our next car, and was pretty much set on the CRV. However, I drove our friends Toyota Highlander while we were on vacation, and I think I am SOLD. It felt like I was driving our Camry - the body (whatever it's called, I don't know car lingo) is very similar, there are three rows of seating (if you wish) and TONS of storage. You don't feel like you are driving a truck or that you are really high off the road (and it takes a lot for me to be comfortable in a larger car). You may want to check it out.

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  6. We recently bought a Honda CRV and love it. We wanted something bigger than our Corolla but not too big. We get 25 mph, pretty good for an SUV. One thing that really helped us was to go to a car show without the kids and try out every car we were ever considering. Minivans just felt too big for our needs.

    Also Jon and I are a foot apart in height so our biggest decider in cars is always - are both of us comfortable in it? I was not comfortable in the Toyota Venza and he was not comfortable in the Rav4. We both fit well in the CRV.

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  7. I still swear by the Honda Pilot. We were going to get the CRV but when we actually started shopping for cars it seemed too small to us. It's just a bit bigger than a standard 4 door so I say do it American style. Go big or go home! And purchase a foreign car of course :-)

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  8. Hi. Mommyesq's friend ABS here. We have a Pilot, and it gets surprisingly good gas mileage for such a large vehicle. There is a TON of room for stuff. We park in a relatively tight parking garage with no problem; it has a great turning radius.

    We're expecting twins in December, and we have NO plans to go the minivan route, EVER.

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  9. I also steadfastly refuse to get a minivan. I am pleased with my Toyota Highlander. It doesn't drive like a truck and it's been very reliable. We've got 3 carseats in the back of it, so there's space for another addition if you decide to go that way. ;-)

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