My son just had his nine-month check-up.
He’s been a hoss since the day he got here, sitting somewhere above the 99th percentile in height since he was born. I admit to taking a perverse sort of pride in this. His sister’s going to be tall, and while we want her to top out at a reasonable height for social reasons, it’s pretty much the sky’s the limit with the boy. Especially if he can support us in our old age with a lucrative basketball contract or something! 
But on his most recent checkup, he landed in the 96th percentile on height. My wife told the pediatrician, “His dad will be disappointed.” The pediatrician replied, a little startled, “What? Does he want him to be 6′ 10″?” My wife responded, “Probably.” Now in all seriousness, I don’t care how tall either of them are, and I know these percentiles are really only valuable for seeing if something lags or spikes when it shouldn’t. The genetics on both sides are that they’ll be tall, so they’re stuck with that, whether they like it or not. Still. The 96th percentile. I’ll definitely have a talk with him about his lack of ambition at the yearly family review.
And he’s apparently only in the 67th percentile on weight. This figure makes me want to sneak in the pediatrician’s office at night and check their scales. The boy’s like a sack of greased bricks — a sack of greased, crying bricks — when you try to pick him up. There’s NO WAY he weighs only 22 lbs.
But I guess he needed to take time off to grow a giant brain, since his head grew by leaps and bounds this time around. In my more sarcastic moments, I tend to believe he grew his skull just so it would give him better timbre and projection in his crying fits.
The pediatrician asked about a couple of developmental milestones. They asked if he was waving bye yet. This sounds kind of advanced for a 9-month-old, but apparently he should be doing it. He’s not, but it’s not something we’ve really tried to get him to do. Besides, why wave bye when my family’s traditional farewell, “Y’all come with us!” will do just fine?
Or maybe he’s a vengeful sort. Not waving bye implies, “I’ll be seeing you later. Oh yes I will. And I will bring the crying, and I will bring the volume.”
Actually, he says goodbye by crying. Even when you just walk behind him. So the developmental milestone known as separation anxiety? Check.
They also asked if he was picking things up with his thumb and forefinger. He does this when you give him something small enough, but he doesn’t seem to care for it. After all, it’s not a very good grip for grabbing something fist-sized and slamming it into the TV screen a dozen times before you can get to him.
So all told, a pretty good checkup. Still no answers for getting him to sleep through the night. I guess he’ll just have to grow out of that one, since nothing we’re doing seems to make a difference on that front.
