The queen of beta-carotene

At Ava's nine month well-baby checkup our doctor asked what kinds of foods Ava liked.

"She likes apples, pears... most fruits, but she loves sweet potatoes!"

Apparently this was already clear, because the reason he had asked was Ava had a distinct orangish color to her. It's funny how when you see someone every day you can be so blind to the obvious changes. We were told that this isn't harmful to her in any way, but that she was definitely getting pumpkin-esque. Ava's not happy about it, but we've had to cut back on how often she gets sweet potatoes or carrots. All this time we thought she just had a good, warm, natural color to her skin.

It's kind of interesting to me that I missed this. Recently I saw a patient at the hospital that had jaundice to the Nth degree. I only saw the patient in passing, but, if I hadn't known better, I would have said she was positively glowing yellow. Something like that catches your eye across the room (speaking of eyes, here's a picture of icterus... aka jaundice changes in the eye). Yet, somehow, I was unable to perceive my own daughter's changes.

Granted, she wasn't extremely orange. She should be back to her normal pink-cheeked self again in no time. Otherwise, she's doomed to go trick-or-treating as a pumpkin again.