1.5 Year Check Up

Today was Ada's 1.5 year checkup. She got another shot (whoopity do). Then the doctoress pulled out the milestone checklist to see how Ada is doing compare to other kids. She's still off the charts for height and weight. Her gross motor skills are fine. But her communications skills are lacking. One theory is that she uses sign language pretty well and that's slowing down the need for her to use words. At this age, she should have five to twenty words or so. Ada says Mama, Dada, BaBa (not for bottle -- just because) and that's it.

The theory now is that we go back in three months to check on her progress and re-evaluate, just in case. If she's progressing nicely and just a bit behind the curve, that's fine. Otherwise, we can meet with a speech pathologist (or is it speech therapist?) and see if we need to focus on something specific. We're going to try to work with more picture books and focus on body parts, colors, numbers, common household objects, etc. I'm thinking a little less time spent with her all time favorite Finding Nemo DVD won't hurt (She only watches it once or twice a week so don't get all excited that TV is my babysitter since I don't even have TV access. We only get that snowy fuzz, and maybe channel 2 if it is sunny out.) Feel free to leave comments or email me with any tips if you've been in this spot before. I'm sure she's just taking her time and working us as much as she can and I'm not worried. There is a difference between being worried about something and keeping an eye on it. I'm keeping an eye on it...and her size since she's still off the charts -- but that runs in the family.

Speaking of height, at 34 inches -- if you double that -- since they say a kid's height at age 2 doubled is their likely adult height -- she's already going to be 5'8" and she's got six more months to grow. I really need to get Aunt Heather to commit to teaching her basketball and volleyball since she played Cornell. I can't pass up that opportunity for Ada --but I'm not going to be some pushy mom that makes her play sports if she really wants to go out for the ballet or theater or start her own dog walking business at age ten. I'm cool with all of that.

Back to her doctoress visit...

I then asked about potty training as I've started to do some research and the Doctoress recommended getting a potty and getting Ada used to it. Start explaining when we go to the bathroom and referencing the potty. Give her some time to acclimate to the potty and accept it as her own. That sort of thing. I've had a few mom's tell me their potty training stories and advice so again, if you have anything to add on that topic, please feel free to leave a comment below and I'd be happy to consider it. We're at ground zero for this stuff and I don't want to mess it up.

My next-to-final beef of the day is Ada's shoe size. Her feet keep getting bigger and bigger, it seems like every week it's a new size. She's already a size 7 and we have a collection of shoes in size 6 and 8 but only one pair of sevens and I bought them from Target, thought they were cute, they had rubber soles so that would be good, and they seemed to fit-- but now that she's worn them a few times, I notice that she slips all over tiled-floors in stores and our hardwood floors at home, so they really aren't that great. And the selection at Target was crap. Totally picked over by the time I got there. Disappointing. So I've sent Grandma Ba on a mission to see what she can find. That way, she gets to fill her need to buy cute things for Ada, Ada gets new shoes, and I don't have to fight the crowds and crappy selection at Target(not to knock target because I do like that store for the most part -- minus their current selection of sunglasses and that's only because I just broke mine camping... but I digress, again.)

And my final beef of the day... dun, dun, dun... the damn black berry tree in front of our neighbor's house! Don't get me wrong. I love the tree, its beautiful shade, its size (big for a city tree), and its ability to freshen the air I breath. Love all that. Hate the damn berries that fall all over the sidewalk, making it a purpley/black gooey mess for a month and a half each year. Rick's smart enough to walk across the street to avoid it but since I tend to park just beyond it on this side of the street, that doesn't always work. (We WILL NOT park under it as the car then turns into a giant mess of crap, covered in berries and pigeon poo and there is no hope for ever getting it clean for less than a $20 car wash.)

So today, on the way to Ada's Doctoress appointment, we had to walk through the berries to get to the car. As I buckle her into her car seat, I notice some of them embedded into the soles of her stupid pink sandals that don't fit the cute chubbiness of her feet, and I make a mental note to clean them at some point and hope they don't stain the car. Of course, what happens when I get to the Doctoress' office? Ada wants to stand on my lap. In her pink shoes. With berries on the bottom. And what happens? My jeans (albeit my "fat" jeans which offer the poorest fit of all jeans in my collection) get berry rubbed into the left front thigh. Nice. Thanks Ada. Just what I've always wanted.

But wait... it keeps going. She gets berries on the paper covering the baby scale when they weigh and her (32.2 lbs), on the paper covering the exam table when they check her ears, all over the tiled floor of the exam room, a few spots on the carpet outside of the exam room, just above my cleavage (if I had any--how did berries get there anyway?), and all over her inner calves. A mess. Luckily, we saw our friend Jen outside on the walk back home from the car and crossed the street to talk to her, and thereby avoiding the berries on the sidewalk. And, I remembered to take Ada's shoes off immediately upon entering the house so she didn't stain our new living room rug -- the one with a big cream colored circle on it that is just waiting for a big nasty purple berry stain.

Moral of the story: Days like this are the reason we have other mom friends we can call or chat with and vent to. It makes it all just that much easier to deal with.