The Jensen Family's Little Viking Tales: Brooke's Checkup

Now that she is 19 months and 5 days old, we finally got Brooke in to the doctor for a checkup! We moved a week before she turned one, so she missed her one year checkup. Apparently, they won't give shots even a day before they turn one, and then with no job here in Utah, we didn't have insurance until January, so we are now finally getting caught up with doctor visits. Brooke went today, the boys have their checkups next Monday, and then the pediatrician will meet baby Quatro the following Monday. The doctor will get to know our family quite well in the next few weeks.

We are glad to have a doctor who seems really nice and seems to pay attention to both the child and the parent. His name is Dr. Art Gardiner and he was recommended to us by our friends, the Jergensens. It turns out my sister, Janell, takes Dallas and Lincoln to him as well! Dr. Gardiner seems so much more personable than the doctors we had in Las Vegas. I kind of felt we were just numbers there, but here I felt we were treated like people by the doctor and his staff. So nice!

Anyway, Brooke had a good checkup. She has a little bit of a cold, so I was worried they might not give her the immunizations she needed, but they said a little cold is not a problem, so that was good. When we headed down the hallway to the exam room, Brooke got a little hesitant, and when she saw the exam table with the protective paper on it, she started whining a little. Last week, we took all the kids to get their flu shots, and I think she was able to remember that wasn't the most pleasant experience. She wasn't super cooperative for the checkup, but she did okay, at least until the end when the shots came. Then she was not a happy camper at all! She had to get six shots, so two nurses double teamed her and they each did three shots per leg at the same time to get it over with a little quicker. Poor Brookie did not like that at all! But she got over it fairly quickly. She's a tough little girl.

So here's where she stands. At 19 months and 5 days, she weighs in at 27.2 lbs, which is the 81st percentile. She's 34.25 inches tall, which is the 96th percentile. Usually our kids are closer to average on the height and a little higher in weight, but so far Brooke is on the tall side. Nice! As far as head circumference, she's at 19.5 inches, which is the 98th percentile. Just following the tradition of big heads in this family!

Brooke is so much fun to have around. My mom nicknamed her "Pebbles" from the Flintstones because of her wild hair, which we finally had cut a week or so ago. She is full of energy and personality. She does well going to Nursery at church (hooray!), and she enjoys drawing and coloring on any paper she can find. She removes her clothes (especially pants) and pajamas whenever she can, so we've started putting her in more onesies so she doesn't pull her diaper off as well, which she sometimes tries to do. She climbs into and on top of everything, including the piano and the top bunk bed, she gets into whatever she can, and doesn't put up with much grief from her brothers. If they are sitting where she wants to sit, she tries to push them out of the way. If they try to take something from her, she holds on tight and puts up a good fight. She's tough, and sometimes a little bit of a bully. It's kind of funny now, but when she gets older, it won't be so amusing. She hates to be told no, and if it happens, she often screams or growls at the person telling her no, and then she runs away as fast as she can. She's a stinker, but so dang cute. She still jabbers like crazy, and I love to hear her when she wakes up because she usually just sits in her crib and talks to her toys. Most of the time she doesn't wake up the boys with her jabbering, but sometimes if I leave her in there long enough, she'll wake up Gabe. She'll say things like "Mama" and "Dada" or "happy" but most of the time it's just jabber or singing. She's had several words in her vocabulary for a while, like hi, bye, and no. Other words she's figured out are "Momo" for Mormor, "nana" for banana, "George" for Curious George, "Beeder" for Leave it to Beaver, which Sean and I watch at night sometimes when we try to get her to sleep, "peas" for please, and "dis" when she wants this or that. She's good at pointing things out, or grabbing your hand and taking your where she wants you to go, but she's not nearly as verbal as the boys were. They were saying a lot more words by the time they were her age. I think sometimes the boys do her talking for her, so maybe she feels she doesn't need to say much yet. Oh yea, she says "baby" when she wants to watch the "Your Baby Can Read" dvds, and she'll repeat some of the alphabet when I sing it to her, but usually we get the letters A, B, and then she jumps to Y. She loves music, and loves to dance. If a song comes on the TV and she's not watching, she runs in to see what is going on and starts dancing. Whether she's sitting or standing with the radio or TV on, she loves to wiggle when the music comes on. We love this busy little girl!

And now, time for some photos from the last couple of months.