Friday, September 7, 2007

Malnutrition and Man-Arms


What do you mean, “her nutritional needs aren’t being met” I let her drink the whole 2 litre. There’s like .005% fruit juice in there!


We took Gwen in for her 9 month checkup this week and they did a blood test to check for lead and to check her hemoglobin. The results indicated that her iron levels were low. Not dramatically low, but low enough that they want us to supplement her iron with a liquid iron vitamin supplement for at least a month.

Now they tell me this is normal and usually due to the fact that she’s growing so fast at this stage. However, me being the pessimistic, self berating person that I am, am convinced that it’s all my fault because I let her get away with just a few spoonfuls of pureed green beans, yet let her eat the entire jar of cherry vanilla pudding. So I’ve vowed that the kid will eat nothing but broccoli until she moves out.

No word yet on the lead test. We have to call next week and find out. It should be normal, that is unless the kid has touched anything that’s been made in China.

Onto another related subject: Gwen’s pediatrician, a very fine physician and personable gal, has “man arms” and they kind of freak me out.

They’re not hugely muscular or anything but they’ve got that vein popping thing like body builders and crack addicts have. And her arms are really tan too, like more tan than the rest of her so it reinforces the feeling that she’s surgically attached the limbs of a buff lightweight prize fighter to herself. I don’t know if it’s a genetic thing or maybe she just works out a lot and only puts her arms in the tanning bed - but they just always take me by surprise.

She comes in all feminine in her cute little lilac twin set and then goes to touch the kid and out come these GI Joe arms – veins throbbing like they’re separate entities posing in some vein popping body building competition. Freaky.