Bobby and the Technicolor Diaper

OK...it's getting harder to come up with good titles for these things.

It's been a quiet week here as we settle into a new routine of Valerie being back at work. We're very happy with Bobby's new care giver. She holds him for most of the day, which is really all he wants out of life. Synthia won me over when I asked her, "do you ever notice that Bobby looks a little smug when he cries and gets you to pick him up?"

"I sure do," she said. "Don't let them tell you that little brain ain't working; that little brain is working fine."

Yes, Bobby has us wrapped around his fingers. And, Bobby continues to grow. He's now a couple of ounces shy of eleven pounds, meaning I only have a week to come up with an alliteration to eleven that means handsome and robust around the waistline.

Not that Bobby is as big as the pictures might lead you to believe. Oh, his weight is outpacing his length for sure - that's what the feeding tube is designed to do. We need him to be as big as possible for the surgery so we keep him on a high calorie diet. An ounce of breast milk or baby formula is typically 20 calories. We add vegetable oil and extra powder to Bobby's meals so that he is eating at a 30 calorie per ounce clip. It's hard on him - he often gets too full and struggles to get through his meals, but it's a necessary evil for now.

With all of that, Bobby's weight is in the 5th percentile for typical children his age. He's not long enough to even show up on the growth charts. Part of this is likely due to his heart defect - his breathing takes an inordinate amount of energy which in turn takes energy away from other parts of his development. But, the reality is, Bobby is just going to be a little guy.

The average height of a Ds adult male is 5 feet 3 inches. In fact, the growth patterns for Ds kids are so different from typical children that they have their own set of charts. On the Ds chart Bobby is in the 50th percentile for weight and just above the 25th percentile for height. So, while the heart surgery may be stunting his growth a bit, we're not raising a center or a power forward.

Which doesn't matter. Any child of ours is going to want to run the team from the point anyway. Or maybe he won't like basketball at all. Maybe he'll be a third baseman, or a goalie or some ice hockey related position that he'll have to explain to me. That's for Bobby to figure out.