18-MONTH CHECK-UP

This morning James had his 18-month well baby exam. We weren't shocked to learn that he weighed 27 lbs (fully dressed), since he's been to the doctor pretty much every week for the past month and they weigh him at each visit. He's probably at 26.6-26.8 lbs when only in his diaper. We were, however, surprised to find out that he is 34 inches tall, since we swear he was only 32-ish inches at the beginning of the month when we measured him at home for his monthly stats. Must be growth spurt time! Of course, the nurse did measure him with his shoes on, so I'm going to subtract a half inch for accuracy. Oh, and his head is up to 49cm around now. With those edits, that puts him into the 60th percentile for weight, and the 80th percentiles for height and head circumference.

The good doc didn't ask any specific milestone questions, but rather asked us about his development in general. Perhaps she didn't want to "lead us" with questions?... We discussed his increased vocabulary and recent use of short sentences (two words strung together, such as "All Gone" and "All Done"), talked about his running and climbing, mentioned his ability to point out most of his body parts and connect noises with the animals that make them, his blossoming understanding of just about everything we tell him or ask him or show him, and his awesome memory. She seemed pleased, so I guess that's what she wanted to hear.

He got his final vax for the year: Hep A. And he doesn't go back for another well baby exam until he turns 2-years-old. Wow, that's a long time between visits! We weren't expecting that (we figured we'd be back in 3 months again). We're not complaining though. Now, if we could only stay out of the pediatrician's office all together until then...

Meanwhile, we'll be visiting the ENT next week. James' left ear is still severely infected, so it seems tubes are on the horizon. The very near horizon, we hope. The poor kid is in pain (this is the first time ever that we've noticed him pulling on his ear, so it must be feeling worse than usual). He has to finish out this round of antibiotics, but hopefully that will be his last Rx for a while!

(Oh, and we found this turtle crossing the road on the way home, so we just HAD to show James! He thought it was pretty cool, and we kept having to pull him away so that he didn't get his finger too close to those chompers...)