Maggiesville

I stayed home with Maggie today and took her to her 1 year physical while Graham went to work. It was not her usual delightful visit with fun stats and sweet behavior. Over the past week or so, Maggie has been discovering the art of defiance and that if you scream loud enough, the chances of getting your way greatly improve. We have been reasoning that this behavior came along when she started feeling sick and I believed (and still hope) that once these last traces of her cold go away her spirits might improve, too. For now, we'll have to learn how to manage blood curdling screams as the pediatrician checks her eyes and ears and Maggie's brute strength as she attempts to maneuver out of your arms while her measurements are being taken.

Speaking of measurements, her stats showed that she is still beyond the 95th percentile for height but that she has now dropped to the 25th percentile for weight. Sigh... That's not good. I had a hunch that we might not see much of a weight gain due to her recent lack of appetite but, wow, wasn't expecting a drop.

When we left the office, my mind started working through all the wonderful new foods we could try. Something to whet the appetite and get her excited about food again. Certainly, nothing we had in the pantry was doing the job so we scoured the aisles of the grocery store looking for fun new things. We picked out beef ravioli, chicken fingers pumped up with cheese and broccoli, a block of munster cheese, and all sorts of new goodies. I even bought ingredients for dumplings and spent the afternoon wrapping up little wonton pouches of tasty pork. Fifty dollars later, Maggie ate half a fig newton for lunch, another fig newton for dinner, a few bites of Gerber carrots and called it a day. Not the response was looking for.

On the bright side, those dumplings were good. More for me and Graham, I guess.