The pediatrician was adorable! She looks like the cute loopy teacher in Clueless, the one who hooks up with the Sicillian from Princess Bride. Sort of mousy but sweet looking, with a mop of curly hair in disarray. In her multicolored striped stockings, with little koala bears clamped onto her stethoscope, she looked more like one of Santa's little helpers than a doctor. Jeremiah seemed perfectly content with her, but then he's been pretty comfortable with everyone he's met so far. Pär and I, however, are a lot more choosy, and we both liked her right away too.

She checked the baby out and everything seems to be in order. She also weighed him. Babies always lose a bit of weight in their first few days after being born, but then within a couple of weeks, if all is well, they gain it back and usually put on a bit of additional weight. It's always good when newborns gain weight; it's pretty much the main thing that the doctors look for, because it indicates a whole slew of things are going right.

So she weighed him and found that in his first two weeks of life, Jeremiah has gained a full pound. As of our Thursday appointment, he's up to ten pounds. Considering how much he drinks, I'm not really surprised, but damn, he's put on more than ten percent of his total body weight in a matter of days. That's a whole lot o' baby. He's starting to get a hefty look to him.

Pär and I were observing this yesterday, watching the baby as he lay sleeping on the couch.

"Remember how he looked all puny when he was first born? He doesn't look that way anymore. Check out those huge cheeks."

I peered at the baby, noticing for the first time how beefy he'd become.

"Oh my god, he's got a big double chin! Pär, our baby is so fat!"

Pär poked the baby's cheek gently. "Hello, little fatso."

We giggled at the baby for a while, prodding at his stout barrel belly and his chubby little arms.

"He's not fat," quoth I, "he's big-boned."

"He's not big-boned, he's big-cheeked."

A few hours later, Pär called me in to look at the sleeping baby again. "Look, he's not fat anymore!"

I peered at Jeremiah. "Huh, he lost the double chin. Where'd it go?"

"I bet his weight goes up and down a lot during the course of the day. Like, he drinks a bunch of milk and he's all filled out, and then it goes right through him and only a little stays on permanently."

"You realise this means he's got a chin's worth of poo in his diaper now."

A few hours and a few feedings later, the baby was once again plumped up to the portly size, his cheeks pouched out like Louis Armstrong's.

"God, he's huge," I said.

"He doesn't look quite so fat this time," Pär said, dubiously.

"Dude. He's Jabba the Tot."