Does MM have any cousins in NC?

Not that we know of, but his birth father's family could be out there. That's funny.

Yes. Doctors (not all, but enough and more than should be) will diagnose happy healthy babies as "failure to thrive" if their weight falls too far off the standard growth charts.

Point taken. However, would it be a news item with nutritionists, doctors, etc., weighing in on the mother's failure as a mother?

But, yeah, charts are more or less BS no matter where you're coming from.

Annabel was 60th %tile for both weight and height at her 4-year-old check-up. Which makes sense for the child of a 5'7" mother and a 6'0" father--odds are she'll be medium-tall. To me she looks incredibly long and lean, but I think that's just a "Where did my baby go and who is this CHILD?" reaction. We've never had any issues from the pede about her height and weight, but, then again, I never had much of a milk supply, so she was formula-supplemented from one week and formula-fed from two months. Not how I wanted it to work out, but you can only do what you can, you know?

so happy mac has an international dr. who does not look askance at his skinny skinny limbs. And the US charts for % are so f'd up fo rhis school - about half the kids are from Mexico or S. Amer with short parents and the other half are a mix of Asain and Middle Eastern. The Turkish kid and the Tibetian kid not same body type.

>If you are not watching sodium you add more soy sauce.

Or you can use the lower-sodium soy sauce, which is just as tasty. IMNSHO.

I've always suspected the lower-sodium soy sauce of being the the higher sodium soy sauce with added water...

my fourth case of tonsillitis that winter, the doctor told me that there was nothing wrong with my throat and that my only problem was that I needed to lose 60 pounds.

Because clearly, your butt goes and sends little invader germs to attack your throat! To make it too painful to eat! Or something.

I have discovered of myself that I can look skeletally ill within the range of BMI normal for my height. That wasn't even borderline; it was I think smack in the middle of the normal range, and I was like, Hello! Ribcage = xylophone! That shit ain't right!

Talking to doctors about my cholesterol is always fun. "I'm vegetarian. I don't eat eggs. I don't eat much cheese. When I do drink milk, it's skim. You're going to tell me my cholesterol is 275 because of my diet? Really?" Usually, at that point, they'll try to convince me to eat fish.

I have discovered of myself that I can look skeletally ill within the range of BMI normal for my height. That wasn't even borderline; it was I think smack in the middle of the normal range, and I was like, Hello! Ribcage = xylophone! That shit ain't right!

Me too! I'm within .5 of being in the "overweight" category, and I'm maybe 2 pounds off of my proper weight. If I lost 10 pounds, which still puts me in the upper range of the BMI, I would look nigh unto death. Pfeh.

I think I've told this story before, but I really enjoy the vast range of human physicality. I was on the bus one summer and a tiny bird-boned Asian woman got on - maybe 5 foot, size 00 jeans, wrists like my hearty 4 year old's kind of person - and then two members of the women's basketball team, one white, one black, both easily 6'2 or 3, big and broad-shouldered and muscular and probably shopping for shoes at a specialty store kind of people, and yet all of us, humans in our natural form. So neat!

Um, is crawling around inside the cave sticking things in their mouths any safer? Or are we assuming that all cave-mommies were hard-core babywearers who never let the little ones out of their sight? (Now imagining a prehistoric Park Slope full of custom mamoth-print slings...)

I would assume that a cave would be safer because there would be less vegitative stuff. Lots of plants are not so good for the eating! There would be dirt and what not, but the rocks might be less potentially poisonous than plants might be?

Noah is on his own growth chart! I mean, he's not even ON the chart, which is sort of neat. They plot points and just look to see that he is growing in a sort of curve pattern with no big dips or leaps.

And he was supplemented, even his breastmilk was fortified with formula. But that's because his lungs used more energy to breath than the average baby.

And poor Gracie. Barely 13 lbs.

Also, yeah, what Jess said about breastfed babies. Pediatricians are supposed to have separate growth charts for BF babies, but they very frequently don't. And then you get the happy fun MUST START SUPPLEMENTING NOW pressure. Ugh.

The WHO orgs charts are cool because they are based on world wwide breastfed statistics.

I was talking to my friend Darlene who has has 14 month old. SShe said her kid was in the 15th percentile. And I was like, "Darlene, I'm 5'1" and taller than you are! And I outweigh you by 50 lbs. Of course your kidlet is smaller."

The percentiles are an average of babies. It's not like if you are in the 95% that you have a better baby. Just a bigger one.

Point taken. However, would it be a news item with nutritionists, doctors, etc., weighing in on the mother's failure as a mother?

A news item? probably not. But you do have doctors and nutritionists who weigh in on all the time with the failure to thrive thing.