Just a little boy

"I think you're a bit too close, Noah"

It was the dreaded immunisation day today. I took Felix over to see the Health Nurse to have his Chicken Pox vaccine. When the other 7 kids were babies, there was no vaccine for Chicken Pox. The oldest 5 kids all had it at the same time. They slightly overlapped so I remember being housebound for a really long time. The scent of tar baths and Calamine lotion hung in the air for weeks! When the youngest 2 were 5 months and 2 years old my eldest daughter, Amy, got Shingles (she was only 7 at the time, poor thing). She was miserable, but I got her to cuddle the youngest two to see if they would catch Chicken Pox from her Shingles. They did, and we were finally 7 for 7!! The kids all coped with it really well so we debated whether to bother with the vaccine for Felix or not (All our kids are fully immunised for everything else). In the end we decided for him to have it so I'm hoping the side effects from it don't make him too miserable over the next couple of weeks.

"I'm your Uncle so you must do as I say!"

While we were seeing the Health Nurse, Felix got weighed and measured. I'm one of those really slack Mums who rarely gets their baby weighed. The only reason why Felix has a reasonably regular record of his weight is because he's had to visit the Paediatrician every so often and he does it there. Our little guy weighs 8.08kg (17.8 pounds) with clothes on, and is 74.5cm long (29.3 inches). He has finally broken the 8kg barrier!! He's such a light weight, but I'm not complaining because it makes him much easier to carry around. Once he's walking I won't mind if he's a bit heavier.

"I didn't order baby for dinner!"

Babies with Down Syndrome are generally much smaller than other babies (although there are exceptions to the rule, of course). Here in South Australia we even have a different graph to plot the growth of our kids with Down Syndrome as a lot of them are WAY off the bottom of the 'regular' chart. It's just a way to make it a bit easier to see that they are following the same percentage each time they are measured and don't suddenly spike or drop in weight. Felix has always sat on about the 50% percentile for both his weight and height on the Down Syndrome chart, but SO far below on the 'regular' chart that he doesn't even come close to the bottom line. No wonder I sometimes forget how old he is.

Tonight we had a bit of fun with Felix and Noah. Joel put Noah on Felix's high chair tray after he'd eaten his dinner. Felix wasn't quite sure what to make of having a baby laying there in front of him. He leaned in for a good look and then pushed him away when he'd had enough. Noah seemed quite happy and is settling in very well to our crazy household. We quickly snapped some photos of the boys together. I hope you enjoy them :)