As Conrad turned 6 months, we wanted to have him weighed again. I took him and Jessica over to the health visitor clinic on the Wednesday (10th December). He wriggled a lot on the scales – in a curious, wanting to look around himself kind of way – so the display wouldn’t settle on any specific figure, but as it showed just above and below 10 kilos (22lb), the health visitor decided on that for the record.
As this meant Conrad ended up very high on the weight centile graph, the health visitor suggested checking his length too, which I was more than happy for her to do (only wish they did it every time!). Through joint efforts – me holding Conrad’s head between the palms of my hands (and chatting to him to try to distract him) and the health visitor trying to catch one of his kicking legs for long enough to stretch it out with his heal against the length chart – the health visitor managed to pronounce him 74cm (2ft 5.1in). So he’s now officially in 9 to 12 month size clothing…! The conclusion when weight was compared to length was that Conrad’s nicely in proportion, so no need to worry there.
As I hadn’t met this particular health visitor before, when she asked if Conrad was breast or bottle-fed, I told her about Conrad’s tongue tie and pulled-back chin. She suggested going to see a speech therapist, just to have his chin assessed by a specialist, to see if there might be any future implications relating to Conrad learning to speak later on. She said it’s probably likely that the therapist would turn around and say that everything was fine, but if there was anything that could be done now to prevent a potential problem later wouldn’t it be better to know? Ian and I think Conrad’s chin looks absolutely fine now, and I’d relaxed about it and not really thought about any potential future consequences, but she had a point of course. The speech therapist she recommended has a drop-in clinic for one hour twice a month in Three Bridges, though, so we’d have to see how soon we could get there.
Conrad’s so keen on walking (still holding on to our hands of course), he giggles and stomps excitedly whenever he gets the opportunity to. Yesterday he walked all the way from the far end of the living room out into the hallway to see what Jessica was doing (she was stacking soft toys in both pushchairs) – wobbly and slow, but determinedly – and giggled excitedly when he came up to her. Sometimes he looks at his sister with such a delighted expression on his face, reaches for her, and when she looks back he laughs really happily.
He reaches his feet really well now when lying on his back, curls up to a little cute ball, though he’s not quite putting his toes in his mouth yet. No doubt that will come soon. He’s not keen on lying down nowadays, but certainly practises grabbing his feet when he’s on the nappy changing mat or sometimes in his cot too.
Gabriella