My daughter is squishy
We took Daisy to a physical therapist at Kaiser today, just to find out some more information about where she is in the great Motor Skills scheme of things. (She crawled very late--at 12 months--and still doesn't crawl much; cruises only just a very little; has pulled up maybe 3 times.) I realize that all children hit developmental milestones at different times, and there is no "right" age for babies to do things, but there seemed no harm in just checking in with a physical therapist. She was a nice person and we found the session helpful--she gave Daisy a very thorough looking over, identified some areas to work on, and gave us some instructions on how we can encourage Daisy a little more at home to explore the use of different muscles and positions. Basically, there is nothing wrong with her (knock on wood), but the therapist said she would be less frustrated and more stimulated if we encouraged her to try some new things out.
But this is the part that cracks me up. The therapist told us Daisy is a bit, and I quote, "soft and squishy." This is the layman's way of saying she is slightly "low tone" or hypotonic; her muscle tone is not very developed and she is not particularly strong. Yet, anyway. Luckily, she is not the softest or squishiest baby the therapist had ever seen, and still on the normal side of things, but a bit squishy.
I realize it's ridiculous for this choice of words to have affected me the way they did, but honestly, I felt like someone had whumped me with a sack of bricks. "Does this mean she's always going to be chosen last in gym class?" I whimpered. "Does it mean no one will want her on their side in dodgeball?" My own horrible experiences with the above flooded over me. To give the therapist credit, she didn't sugarcoat it. "Maybe," she said.
But this is the part that cracks me up. The therapist told us Daisy is a bit, and I quote, "soft and squishy." This is the layman's way of saying she is slightly "low tone" or hypotonic; her muscle tone is not very developed and she is not particularly strong. Yet, anyway. Luckily, she is not the softest or squishiest baby the therapist had ever seen, and still on the normal side of things, but a bit squishy.
I realize it's ridiculous for this choice of words to have affected me the way they did, but honestly, I felt like someone had whumped me with a sack of bricks. "Does this mean she's always going to be chosen last in gym class?" I whimpered. "Does it mean no one will want her on their side in dodgeball?" My own horrible experiences with the above flooded over me. To give the therapist credit, she didn't sugarcoat it. "Maybe," she said.
posted by Sarah Goss at 9:10 PM
3 Comments:
I can definitely relate to being chosen last. But hey, at least she's not hard and rigid!
Linda J.
She is squishy! In that cute way.
Seriously though, like you said, every kid's different. Gwennie was the squishiest kid you ever saw ... until about two months ago. Now she's toning up. The way they are at 1 year old is not the way they'll always be.
In the book "Freakonomics" is a section about how all the things we do as parents to affect how our kids turn out ... actually have very little effect. That knowledge kind of shook me. We spend so much time thinking, "If I do ___, will it hurt their chances of ___?" Or "If I do ___, can I help them ___?" And it all adds up to practically nothing. That's scary, but also liberating in a way. All the things we stress about, we can stress less about. It's not so much about what you do -- just that you're there and you love them.
Sarah.
She's your daughter. Of _course_ she's going to be chosen last in gym class.
The only reason I wasn't was because of Beth Avery, who has four left feet and was, if you can imagine, even more unpopular than I was.
I think it builds character.
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