Jude's 2-week wellness check-up

We took Jude to his 2-week wellness check-up today and learned that he is a healthy baby boy. Above is a photo of our doctor with baby Jude. (Look carefully and you'll see his big foot sticking out.) Turns out his Apgar score was 9 and 9 on the one and five-minute tests. Over 7 means he's normal. I'm going to hold our doctor to that! What does normal mean, anyway?!

He had impeccable timing with the losing of his umbilical cord stump . . .he lost it in her office during our appointment! Our doctor cauterized his belly button on the spot and said we could give him his first bath after 24 hours. She also asked if we wanted to keep it for his scrapbook, but we passed on the opportunity. Jude, I hope you're not upset with us!

Amanda and I also had the chance to ask all of those questions first-time parents ask. We were comforted to learn:

• Newborn babies shed, but it's not unhealthy dry skin. They've just been underwater for 9 months and, since air is dryer than embryonic fluid, begin to lose their outermost layer of skin. Sorry Jude, it's down to 3 layers like the rest of us! Our doctor advised that the best solution to his dry skin problem is to give him a bath or wipe him down with a warm, wet washcloth. Moisturizing lotion is OK, but not necessary.
• Feeding more than 10-15 minutes per side is enough, and we should have Jude should use a pacifier to pacify himself.
• Throwing up for a baby, even out of their nose and mouth, is somewhat normal. If it happens excessively, call the nurse hotline.
• She prefers we take a rectal temperature up to 3 months of age over temporal or ear thermometers. If his temperature gets over 100.4° F, call the nurse hotline. Guess who's on that duty?!
  
• other trivial things, like proper poop color, time between feedings, etc.
  

What I thought was the coolest things was that she gave us stats on how Jude ranks compared to his peers according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control). They have growth charts on their site which can be used to assess the growth of infants. Unfortunately, they do not separate out stats for babies based on race/ethnicity or whether they were breast fed or not. So our little caucasian baby competes with the african american, asian and hispanic babies on head circumference, length and weight. As of today, here's where he stands:

source: The Magic Foundation

Jude's percentile rankings:
Length-to-age: 63% (53.25 cm / 20.96 in)
Weight-to-age: 10.64% (3.14 kg / 6.92 lbs)
Head Circumference-to-age: 37.45% (36.4 cm / 14.33 in)

Sounds like we have a tall, skinny baby on our hands. Does that sound like his father?

(My plan is to update these charts over the next 36 months with his progress to show where he's at. I'll do that with a new post.)

Note: I tried using the Google Charts API and a few different online chart generators (here and here), but couldn't figure out how to create the type of charts you see above. The Excel file from The Magic Foundation was serviceable after a few aestethic edits. If anyone can help me figure out how to display this chart using Google Charts, please let me know! Dan?