When Does It Go Upside Down?

 
Theo and I found out that Li Mei likes being thrown up into the air, flipped, spun in circles and so forth. We do a lot of that, I think we're addicted to the giggles. So anyway, it was a bit of an anticlimax when she got her first swing ride. She was very polite about it and patiently waited until we took her out.

We went into weigh Li Mei again. It's been two weeks since she weighed in at 16 lbs. Today she was more than 18! Woohoo! Given her lack of physical development and obvious lack of nutrition, we were worried about how her various physical tests would turn out. They all came out great. It was weird -- even our pediatrician, the wonderful Dr Ken Katz, was slightly stunned that there was no sign of disease, lead poisoning, parasites, even nutrition tests indicating protein levels came out within the normal range. The only thing slightly off was one of her numbers that relates to her reactiveness to Hep B. She wasn't very reactive, so she may not have gotten the vaccine. Re-doing all the immunizations isn't a bad idea.

Poor thing got five shots, the first of the whole series from newborn to age three. She was a real trooper when she got the shots, crying normally and then cheering up quickly. Later in the day she started running a slight fever and has been grumpy. That was so weird, Li Mei is never grumpy except when food is late or it's time to go to bed.

In other news, she'll be getting her teeth cleaned and if they find any cavities (they haven't found any yet), they'll fill them while she's knocked out. So far though, everyone's been amazed by the good condition. Other than massive tartar due to an entirely liquid diet, her teeth look pretty good.

And the eye doctor had good news too. While she's significantly near-sighted (correctable), the vision issues related to albinism (not generally correctable) aren't as serious. Until she's a little older with some language and patience, it'll be hard to get her glasses. Her retinas were too light for him to get a good reading and an exact prescription for glasses. We're still looking into some OT specifically for blind and vision impared kids.

So, that's the news. Amazingly good, but the thing that amazes me most is the joy that Jazz has. She seems to have so little anxiety and so much wonderment and humor.