Looks like an orange on a toothpick!

Heed! Down in front! (anyone know what movie that is from???)

At Marlo's one year appointment I had expressed some concern to our pediatrician about her favoring her right foot over her left, as well as the fact that her left foot seems to be turned out more than her right. She has also been a tad behind when it comes to the walking/cruising/pulling up on things milestones. She was totally happy sitting and scooting, and occasionally tried to pull herself up, but didn't show a ton of interest it in around her one year appointment (unlike now where she is trying to pull up on everything). If we put her in a standing position, she will wobble all around, and isn't able to support herself, but she will walk while holding our hands, but it is more of a march than anything resembling a normal walk (see video). So our doctor told us to make an appointment with the Pediatric Orthopedits at MGH and just get her checked out to see if anything was wrong with her bones in her hip/leg/foot.

We ventured down to MGH last week and met with Dr. Gerkoff and his Nurse Practitioner. Erin, the NP, came into the room to see us first and she immediately said, "So how big is her head? Big right?" to which I replied "99 percentile, so yes big." We come to learn, as we had expected, that because she has such a giant head, and is so thin and narrow that she will have a harder time getting her balance than most babies who have some junk in their trunk. What is funny about this is that my husband and I joke about her being shaped like a lollipop, and that she is so top heavy she can't balance...and it turns out that we were actually right!

After a pretty thorough physical evaluation we had to have x-rays taken of her hip/pelvic area. And then we finally got to see the doctor, who was one of the friendlier, funnier and better looking doctors I have seen in a while (always an added bonus when you are in and out of doctor's offices all the time). He also moved Marlo's legs all about and showed me that she is naturally more turned out from the hips than normal...but bone-wise she is perfectly normal. Dr. Gerkoff explained that due to her turn out she will not have a future as a long-distance runner as they tend to have more turned out feet, but she will have an excellent chance at being a dancer (like her Mama was back in the day).

To which I responded "as long as she can play tennis at Wimbledon, her daddy will be happy." Considering she will be at least 6 feet tall, and will be tall and skinny like him, that is my husband's dream, and he is already working on her grip!