Matthew had his appointment at the Special Infant Care Clinic on Thursday, and all went well. (He was even cheerful during almost all of it, which was amazing given that it was an 8 AM appointment and he'd been up from 4 to 6 AM. Yep, that was just as much fun for Mommy as it sounds. And did I mention I had to teach that afternoon, too?)He weighed in at 21 lbs, 10.7 oz (this was the not-cheerful part -- for some reason he always screams bloody murder at the indignity of being undressed and put on a scale), and had a beautiful blood pressure, something like 77 systolic. I was just about to say something like, "Very good, Matthew, you don't have to go back to see Dr. V [the nephrologist]", and in walked Dr. V! (She's fabulous, and it was great to say hello to her, but we're happy not to have to see her in a professional capacity any more, at least for Mattie.)
Two of our favorite doctors (one of the fellows and one of the attendings) were running the clinic this time -- too bad Mike wasn't able to be there!
Mattie's growth charts looked great. He's something like 3rd percentile for height and 10th for weight for his actual age, so that's pretty good (and 50th percentile for head circumference, also good). They said we could go off the preemie formula and switch to either toddler formula or whole milk. Yay! I figured our chunky monkey didn't really need the high-cal formula any more, but I'm still slightly nervous about making the switch, even though there's no good reason to worry. It's not like he's ever been especially picky about the taste of his milk; he used to swig it right down even with his vitamins and blood pressure meds mixed in, so I'm sure it will be fine. We'll find out soon, anyhow -- we're reaching the bottom of the last can of Enfacare today.
The physical therapist checked him out and said everything looked fine. The speech therapist did an assessment, too, and commented that "his social and cognitive skills are fantastic." (Go Mattie!) He didn't do "touchdown" for her, but he did answer, "What does the hot dog say?" (In case you don't know, the hot dog -- canine, not frankfurter -- pants.) But when we got the overall report, he was rated as average for both receptive and expressive language. (I assume that's for adjusted age.) That seemed right to me for expressive, since he's not saying a ton of actual words right now (dog, duck, and occasionally mama, and he signs milk and more), but I was a little surprised at receptive because the kid seems to understand an awful lot.
The doctors think those scores are totally fine, especially since he's walking and doing so much with motor skills. The doctor said it's not uncommon for kids to work on one and then the other. And of course, after I got home, I realized that I'd underestimated how many sounds he's saying (he's doing "s", "sh", and the occasional "f" and "w" that I didn't mention). Ah well, no big deal. (Dear Matthew, if you would allow Mommy to get a full night's sleep, she might be able to remember all of the wonderful things you're doing to report them to the doctors. Love, Mommy.) I also suspect we're on the border of some language gains, because he'll occasionally repeat things we say in ways that sound a lot like real words (he's done this with baby, fresh, and water recently, although only about once for each one).
The last thing was a behavioral hearing test, very similar to the one James did (training them to look over at dancing puppets when they hear a sound), but a lot shorter. His hearing is fine. It was slightly nerve-wracking, though, because although I was pretty sure there's no problem with at all with Mattie's hearing (as he unfortunately demonstrates especially when he's about to fall asleep), there were some softer sounds where he didn't turn to the puppets -- but then they repeated it and he did respond, so it was fine. The audiologist said it's not at all unusual for kids not to respond sometimes, if they're distracted or whatever (and Mattie was definitely getting sleepy by that point, too).
We go back again in about six months, when they'll do more formal developmental assessments for both boys.
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