Não Choras!

LS had her 18 month checkup today. Yep, 18 already. 1/12th of the way to voting. The curse of this visit is that it was the first one where she could use words.

First, an introductory story.

There are a couple scenarios where we ask LS not to cry. The first is if she's fallen or startled and we just gently ask her not to cry ("não choras (shore-azh)") and that everything will be OK. She's really good about stopping and getting ahold of herself. And lately she'll even say "não choras" before we even have a chance to as she's gathering herself up.

The other scenario is if she's starting to whine to complain about something. This warrants a slightly stern "não choras", and again she generally calms herself and repeats it after us, or even says it before we have a chance to (she knows it's coming from Papai if he starts with "Querida.." ("darling..."))!

Fast forward to the Doctor's office.

The weighing was fine today for the first time. Maybe because we were able to explain to her that she just needed to sit there and she was OK with it. She's often stepping on the scale at home now anyway, so maybe it wasn't such a foreign concept this time.

She still doesn't like all the other stuff though, the stethescope, the peering into ears, and eyes and such. So this time around, when she starts to not like it and we're telling her it's ok, as she's stuggling to get away from it, she starts saying "não choras" - over and over again. At one point the Doctor has us lay her back to make it easier to see in her mouth (also made easy by her screaming with it wide open). At that point she's yelling "NÃO CHORAS! NÃO CHORAS! NÃO CHORAS!" It was somehow sad and sweet at the same time. One because mostly she wasn't crying - it's like she really was trying to not cry for us. And second because there she was, "using her words" as we often tell her to do ("querida, usa as palavras") and it wasn't doing any good.

At one point while she's trying to keep the Doctor at bay, trying to push him away with her hands she was also saying "não queres" over and over (which means "you don't want" - though she wanted to say "I don't want"; she's still getting the hang of saying "quero" in response to the question "queres?"). At a couple points there might have been a couple "não mais" ("no more") in there, but it was all a blur at that point.

We're sorry the words didn't work in your favor this time LS. We promise that usually they will. And we're proud of you for using them.

Once the Doctor was done the nurse then had to come in to administer some shots. LS was none to happy about those too, but it was fairly quick. And LS learned a new word today: "Band-Aid".

Stat check: 22 lbs 15.5 oz. Half an oz shy of 23 lbs. More than 4x what she was 18 months ago. Wow.