3 Year Check Up...and Beefing Up

I've never seen a child so excited to go to the doctor! We recently changed doctors and she loves her new (female) doctor. Her first doctor was a male and she's still very leery of strange men. She'd bury her head in my chest the moment Dr. E walked into the room. Now, with Dr. H, she's chatty and happy through the whole exam.

Now for the part where I feel guilty....I suspected the doctor would offer a flu shot, but I wasn't sure so I didn't even mention injections in our daily talks about the upcoming doctor visit. After all the excitement and happily chatting with the doctor and doing so well when the doctor wanted to clean the mound of wax out of her ear (more on that later), she was totally shocked when the shot came. Right before the nurse came in with the shot, I told her she was going to get an injection but it would only be a pinch. Well, her reaction was pitiful. She acted so betrayed. She favored her leg for hours with a look that kept saying to me, "Just a pinch, hey?". I was feeling quite awful.

Anyway, we were ordered to start "beefing her up". Like lots of butter, peanut butter, whole milk, etc. Today's lunch was grilled cheese with loads of butter on both sides of both slices of bread and lots of cheese. Gosh, how did she get so lucky! I'll most likely gain the ten pounds just nibbling on all the yummy food she gets to eat.

So, her stats once again show that she doesn't come close to making it on the American charts. But she does make it in the lower percentiles of the Southern Chinese Girls growth chart and probably most feline growth charts. I guess what concerned us both was that she has lost a pound in the last couple of months.

On the Chinese growth charts she's at 10% for height (34 in) and almost 25% for weight (24.5 lbs). Her head circumference did make it on the American chart, but that's just because she's so smart :). The nurse had to eyeball her height because her head didn't reach the little arm that swings down from the scale.

Oh, and the ear cleaning...apparently she makes enough wax to start her own candle factory. I guess this is common in Asians? At least many other adoptive parents have mentioned their Chinese children have the same problem. I wanted them cleaned out because she says, "Huh?" all the time now. Charming, isn't it? I figure we either need to find out if she's hearing okay or teach her to say "excuse me" because the "huh?" gets annoying. You should have seen the gob of wax the doctor pulled out of her little ear! Another thing for me to feel guilty about is that I haven't been flushing out her ears. The alcohol and vinegar the doctor said to use to flush out her ears was AWFUL smelling and Miyah and I hated it, so we haven't done it in a while. We're going to use peroxide instead.

Anyway, she does seem to hear a little better now, but the doctor wants to have her hearing checked AND....this should be fun...another round of stool samples to make sure parasites aren't the cause of the weight issue. (Eww..parasites make me think of the slug I stepped on (without shoes on) in the garage the other night...grossest thing that has ever happened to me).

With all the curiosity about the human body and her love for the doctor Miyah also loves to play doctor at home. Her toy stethoscope broke a while back, so when my friend, Michelle, asked what she'd like for her birthday I told her a doctor set. Well! You should see how she loves the new doctor set (Thanks Michelle and family!). Michelle also sent her two boxes of bandaids and a fruit Lip Smackers...which rank right up there with candy in Miyah's book. She goes around asking who needs a check up, giving the exam, injection (reassuring that "it's just pretend") then puts a Curious George bandaid on her patient. She proudly tells us she's going to be a doctor like Dr. H when she grows big. And I'm sure she could!