Time past

The next new phase - puberty - medically verified.

We've been taking Allison to the endocrinologist about every six months for about the last few years.  We've been working under the assumption that she was following a "late bloomer" pattern and her bone age scans indicated growth plate space and "young" bones.

Well, the last six months kinda creeped up on us and Allison hit puberty.  I blame our lack of recognizing this on a few things.

1) her monstrously fast growing brother, who looks every day like he's prepared for flood waters by cropping his pants.  When both of them are growing at the same freakishly fast rate - there's nothing to compare with.  The "control group" was not stable.

2) that girl wears nothing but skirts.  Sure - that ankle length skirt is now a mid-calf skirt; but it still looks good and it's not totally noticeable.

3) she's still the shortest person her age around.  Again - comparatively speaking - she has not caught up.
 

So, what does this mean?  Well, her most recent bone age suggested a pretty typical 12 year old.  Yep - her actual age.  Not three years behind, not "lots of time to grow."  The doctor predicted that she's 'maybe' hit 5 feet tall when she's done.  But, I'm not sure he'd put a wager down on that.

I'm a little annoyed that we've been watching and waiting under the assumption that we had more time.  OTOH, I'm not sure I would have changed anything even if we would have known.  So, perhaps I'm just annoyed in general. Or maybe I just like that idea that there were options (if we wanted them) and now there are not more options.

We were left with the directive to "maximize her nutrition over the next 6 months" to take advantage of the growing that she's doing. I would love a doctor to tell me to eat as much as I wanted....