Who passed the test?

A slightly nervous family trouped down the hill today for their second meeting with the Public Health Nurse. She's a lovely lady, expecting her own baby in a few weeks. Why were we nervous? The purpose of the visit was Max's second weigh-in. To re-cap he was 3.63kg at birth and at his fist visit last Thursday he was 3.38kg. This is perfectly normal. Babies loose some weight and as long as they don't loose much more than 10% they are fine. Keen mathematicians will note that this is a perfectly normal 9.3% difference. Then of course we had Friday's feeding trauma and the difficulties surrounding it.

The big sign that everything is going right would be an increase in weight. The Public Health Nurse and the Lactation Consultant (may she see her children's children in a happy Jerusalem) were both at pains to point out how it wasn't a disaster if Max wasn't heavier at his weigh-in today. What we heard was that it wasn't a disaster but questions would be asked and more visits and more weighings would be needed.

They pointed at the healthy sized and coloured nappies. They talked about the regular feedings and they said it wasn't all about his weight. We knew different and that is why we made the long walk with the red pram to the Health Centre at the bottom of the hill.

Now the Health Centre itself is an old parish Hall, the buildings around it have a stamp of 1901 on them so that's about it's vintage. It's falling down a bit. There are lots of bits of the red bricks on the ground rather than in their more traditional location. The caretaker/receptionist welcomed us and put out two chairs in the main hall waiting area. The inside is bright and not at all crumbling but it looks like every other public health building in the world. Lots of posters tell you what to do and what not to do and what to do if you got either of the previous instructions wrong. Our Public Health Nurse bustled in and let Ciara tell the story so far. The pleasantries and niceties and informal bit didn't take long and Max was soon down to his nappy and up on the scales. He normally pees 8 seconds after the nappy is removed but he must have known he was a guest and didn't this time. In his birthday suit he weighed in a whopping 3.6 Kg. Back to birth levels. The PHN could not have been happier, Ciara gave Max a big kiss and I relaxed in my chair. Max was pleased too, we know this because he peed then, just before I got the new nappy on.

We took a quick trip to the Botanic gardens then and took a few moments to enjoy the flowers before mounting the great expedition back up the hill.

The title of this post is, 'who passed the test?'. I ask the question because it occurred to me that I was telling you how well Ciara and I were doing without giving Max a look in. This one was a team effort. I like to think that even I played a part. I bring the food that feeds Ciara who feeds Max. In fairness she and he do all the hard work but who are they without a pit crew! We can all look at the little guy on the scales and imagine a podium and him firing the champaign around the place. We're the guys who are hugging each other back in the team room.