pretty little Peanut Pie

There is so much that I can say about my Peanut that I am not even sure where to start. My most complicated pregnancy, second easiest but second most complicated delivery, definitely my most challenging child of the bunch. But she is my Peanut regardless.

Peanut's nickname actually has an origin, much more different than our other P's. See, her's was Princess before she was born and for a short while thereafter. But she was small. So tiny. Peanut was born at 36 weeks gestation for a host of reasons, one being what they felt was severe IUGR (intra-uterine growth restriction) and because of prenatal heart complications. At birth, they recorded her weight at 5lbs 5oz but just 12 hours later, in front of me, she was a mere 4lbs 9oz. Today at 9 yrs, she is still a peanut, weighing in at 48lbs and 49.5 inches tall.

We have really ran the gamut with Peanut. Everything from dealing with severe GERD that no medications touched (until age 5 when she finally outgrew the daily vomiting) to ADD/ODD/SPD that means that we now medicate her with Adderall. She has dealt with invasive testing for the GERD, along with surgery to biopsy her stomach and esophagus, a broken elbow, stitches, broken nose twice.... She is our roller coaster!

But she is also more than her diagnoses. She is someone that loves horses and wolves and hopes one day to become a vet. She is creative and artistic and longs for a chance to get those thoughts to congeal into masterpieces... even when her mind is racing and not allowing those thoughts to streamline. She is a brilliant child that tested off the charts in some subjects and above average in others but she struggles in school. Peanut is a self-imposed loner, preferring her company or that of adults to those of her peers but she still has friends and is well-liked. A walking enigma is our Peanut.

Like Punk with his soccer, Peanut is our baseball player. Her nickname on the team last year was Slugger because when she is confident, she could hit the sweet spot in the ball each and every time. During games though, she often chokes because everyone is watching her. She is looking forward to another season though, so I know that we made the right decision in allowing her the chance to try Little League since both swimming and dance couldn't hold her interest for longer than a month or two.