Dear Jasmina

On Tuesday, we went for Marie-Hélène’s four month check-up. Of course, she’s underweight, and since the last appointment, she apparently only grew one eigth of an inch. If that were true, one eigth of an inch outgrows sleepers at a surprising rate. So, we tell the doctor that Marie-Hélène simply doesn’t drink much, but she’s active, happy and faithfully fills her diapers like any other child. And there is Marie-Hélène, on the doctor’s table, smiling up at the Winnie-the-Pooh mobile and kicking her legs on the sanitary paper sheet as we re-swaddle her what seems like 20 times in the hour’s long wait prior to his appearance. As he listens to us, she watches him, as he listens to her heart and lungs, she thinks the stethoscope is the funniest thing… and wouldn’t it be funny to make him smile? “Smile, Dr, smile! Can’t you see how cute I can be?” Christian and I have a hard time not laughing out loud, because Marie-Hélène looks like the biggest flirt. But the M.D. takes his job seriously and merely states that she definitely appears healthy, but that we should come back in a week to see if she doesn’t have a normal weight gain during that time. In my head, neurons fire, and little sparks fly, because in all evidence, Marie-Hélène will not gain the normal 4 ounces in a single week, because it didn’t take us a medical degree to see that her average weight gain has only been half that for the past 4 weeks and more. But heck… we’re only parents…

As we prepare to leave, I tell Christian how I can now sympathize so much more with parents who have children with medical conditions. Perhaps God spared us that particular scenario because he knew it would have totally fried my brain cells.