curious things about L

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

It is very interesting, watching L get bigger.  I don’t have any point of reference for the whys and whens that are a part of every baby’s development and personality.  With M, it didn’t take much to refer back to Mr. A or my own childhoods/personalities to understand what was making her tick.  With L, we find new surprises every day.

Examples:

-The incredible shrinking girl.   Actually, L isn’t shrinking, but she is dropping consistantly lower on the height-weight chart.  She came home at about the 50th percentile for height and weight.  In the past year, she has dropped to the 15th percentile for both height and weight.  I keep mentioning it to people to see if anyone thinks I should be alarmed, but my friends and family are decidedly unimpressed.  She eats all day long, so at least I don’t have to be afraid she is malnourished.  She may just have a slightly delayed growth spurt.  Or maybe she just comes from slightly smaller people.

-The lump on her head.  L has a lump right above her forehead, at the front of where her softspot was.  I suspect she has a mild version of metopic synostosis, but so far any medical professional I have mentioned it to (several when we first came home) just shrug and are unimpressed by her lump.  Fortunately, her hair is beginning to grow low enough to hide the lump, but it is doubtful she will want to part her hair in the middle when she is older. 

-Teeth.  L *still* doesn’t have all her baby teeth.  She is 26 and a half months old and she is still missing her bottom incisors.  A teething 2 year +2 month old is no fun at all.   No sign of any 2 year molars coming in either.  And also all her teeth came in backwards order: tops first, then bottoms.  And they bottom middle two are at a 90 degree angle from each other.  They popped through the gums that way.  At this rate, L will be lucky if she can get braces on by the time she is 20. 

-L loves shoes.  Anyones shoes are good, but plastic princess high heels are preferred.  M never had the slightest interest in dress up or high heels and I mostly wear tennis shoes or flip flops, so we don’t own any.  When we go to other people’s houses, L can usually be found prancing around in sparkly cinderella shoes. 

-L loves purses and bags.  And makeup too.  I don’t even carry a bag, but L turns every single bag she finds into a purse.  I don’t even know where she has seen a purse.  Ditto for makeup.  I wear lipstick like 2x per year.  A friend’s kid had some play makeup the other day and L was a girl obsessed.  (As was M, but she is at least old enough to know what it is.)

-The color pink.  It seems to be L’s favorite color despite the effort I have made to make sure very few of our toys are pink.  When asked to identify a color, pink is the one she says correctly most often.  If asked to select one item out of several different colors, she usually picks pink.

I am refusing to acknowlege the three directly above may indict that L is headed toward girly-girldom.  I admit it does make me a tad nervous though.  This may be a huge sign that nature is trumping nurture. Yipes.