Dr. Zibners.com

How to know if your child's illness or injury is really an emergency

articles

The kids are fine

Greetings from Buenos Aires. It’s hard to believe that we’ve already been gone 5 nights. The good news is, we’re all surviving. The girls are thriving. And I’m doing okay too, stimulating the South American economy in an attempt to distract myself. But there’s still this nagging suspicion that I’m missing some terribly important stuff up north. Like teeth and new tricks. Before I left, I told the girls and their grandparents that they were welcome to have a good time but there were to be no developmental milestones reached while I was gone. None.

My mother said, “What do I do? Tie them to a chair?” I said, “Yep. A chair sounds good.” My general rule is: If Mommy didn’t see it, it didn’t happen.” I can’t tell you exactly what day the girls each sat up or held their own cookie, because it didn’t count unless I was there. Seems fair to me. There is a wickedly wide window for every developmental step and no one will be the wiser if I fudge it a few days. Like when we were at Gymboree and a very tall infant with a full set of teeth walked (walked!) over and I asked how old she was. “10 Months!” said her Mom and I thought, as I looked at my very short, enamel-challenged, barely crawling 10 month-old, “Yeah, right. Or so you told your husband. ” Normal is probably normal for your kid, nothing doing what the neighbor’s tot is doing. It is a well-known fact that a formal developmental assessment in the pediatrician’s office can’t hold a candle to the simple question: Does your kid seem to be keeping up with her peers? As long as her peers aren’t just a big troupe of freakish giants with huge teeth, it’s a good way to judge.
So that said, I’m still not too keen on my little girls growing up unless I’m there to see it. If my parents were paying attention, my kids are probably having their new teeth filed down the gum line as I write this. With any luck, my father has strapped newspapers to their legs to prevent new methods of mobility. Mommy’s babies will be just as she left them.

Dr. Lara Zibners, Aug 30, 2010

• Permanent Link »
• Leave a Comment »

Page 1 of 1 pages