One Year, A Little Late

The boys had their 12-month pediatrician appointment today. (Why, yes, it's actually more of a 13-month appointment, but that's when they could get us in!)

Their blood pressures looked good (88 systolic for James and 100 for Mattie), their head measurements looked good, and we get to stop giving them vitamins (yay!). James is a pound or two below where they'd like to see him on the growth curve; he's at 15 lbs, 12 oz. But his length looks good, so the doctor doesn't think there's a big underlying problem; we'll just try to get as many calories into him as we can. Mattie's weight was fine (his length had fallen off his curve a little bit), but the doc thinks he still may have some catching up to do.

Of course, we're not quite sure what Matthew's weight really is -- he strongly objected to being put on the scale. When we tried to lie him down he flipped over and tried to crawl off; when we sat him down he stood up and grabbed for me. The first weight was 20 lbs, 5 oz, and the second one was 21 lbs, 8 oz, so you can see there's a substantial margin of error!

They did a couple of vaccinations (Prevnar and Hep A; they're waiting on the others until the 15-month appointment, since we may be traveling soon) and had to take some blood for lead testing. Matthew was very upset by the whole thing and seemed completely wiped out afterwards. Poor baby! James cried and was bright red when we came back in to get him, but he calmed down pretty quickly.

On a more positive note, Mattie also had his first bites of macaroni and cheese today. I bet they won't be the last!

James's Early Intervention coordinator and his developmental therapist came yesterday. They both think he's doing well and is pretty much on track for his adjusted age (10 months). Hooray for James! After his appointment at the Special Infant Care Clinic tomorrow, we'll reassess how frequently the developmental therapist will come. (My sense is that right now the main issue will be getting him caught up with his language skills, but now that his hearing aids are fitting properly, my guess is that he'll start moving ahead more quickly in that area. When the EI coordinator was here, she noticed him imitating sounds and responding to "yay" by clapping, so those are both good things.)

We think James knows the sign for milk. I had the Baby Signing Time video on yesterday, and James was standing up holding on to one of his toys. He turned around toward me and made the sign for milk. I said "milk" and did the sign back to him, and he did it again -- so I brought him his milk, and he happily drank it! Mike said he did the sign again this morning on the changing table. I'm pleased and a bit surprised -- we haven't been very good about doing any signing, so I'd be impressed if he picked it up just from the video or our occasional times doing it. We'll see if it keeps up!

We also seem to have gotten the diaper rash under control, at least for the moment -- the last couple days of it's been mostly gone. What a relief! We definitely have to still keep doing preventative measures, but diaper changes are now a much less painful experience for all concerned.