doctor, doctor!

Doctor Kathleen cheerfully administers some shots to keep everyone "well and healthy." (For the uninitiated, that's what the doctor says in Richard Scarry's Best First Book Ever.)

Kathleen received some miniature scrubs from her cousin Lizzie a while back. Too big for her at the time, they were tucked away with the other gratefully-accepted-but-still-too-big-hand-me-downs. A few weeks ago I actually remembered to look through that storage bin and -- along with a number of other useful items -- we pulled out the scrubs.

Kathleen is in love. Lizzie had worn the scrubs as a Halloween costume, but since Kathleen already had her Halloween costume when we rediscovered these, she's been putting them to other use. She wears them every night as pajamas, lately layered over a long sleeved white t-shirt. (She'll proudly tell you that that's what real doctors do so they don't get cold.) And once she's dressed in her scrubs, she quickly outfits herself with the rest of her doctoring accessories -- at least until we make her take them off for bed. (Incidentally, she sleeps with those items in a doctor's kit next to her bed, so she can get them as soon as she wakes.)

The scrubs were a timely discovery. Between well-baby check-ups and flu shots and an odd infection (on Madeline's leg -- better now, thanks), the circus has made a number of trips to the doctor of late. Some highlights from those visits:

• Kathleen barely cried when she got her flu shot. She started to, and then she stopped. Madeline, on the other hand, could not be consoled. "Dockta hurt me!" she'd wail. Kissed and hugged and sung-to and bribed with milk, she simply continued crying all the way home and then some. The child knows how to hold a grudge.


• Madeline charmed the doctor at her two-year-check-up, singing and talking and moving the entire time. Our pediatrician was spared the indignation that Madeline can demonstrate when vaccinated, since we did that at a separate appointment.


• Indy is, indeed, enormous. At his belated four-month check-up (just before we left for South Dakota), he weighed over 21 pounds. Happily, though, he's completely proportional, in the 98th percentile for both weight and height.


• Indy has four teeth and a super smile. He still insists on eating every three hours through the night, so now that he's six months old, we've finally broken out the rice cereal. He has tackled it with the same enthusiasm he downs his milk.

Indy's first meal of rice cereal. So far, he's a happy eater.

I'm roasting a butternut squash right now, which will be his first taste of vegetables. Let's hope he likes that, too. And let's hope it induces a little more sleeping!