WHAT!!??!!??

It is with sadness and denial that I make this post. Tomorrow M will be 18 months.

How did this happen? When did 18 months go by? How is my little baby halfway to two?

We had M's 18 month doctor's appointment today. He is doing well. Earlier in the week he started having a lot of nasty drainage from his eyes which is still present. Since the whites of his eyes were still white, I assume it was allergies, which was confirmed by the doctor. I may or may not start him on some meds this weekend.

His weight was down in percentiles again. In fact I think he only gained 1/4 of a pound in the last 3 months. He currently weighs 22.25 pounds. Right now there really isn't a concern. He is sitting in the 5th-10th %-ile where his sister likes to hang out. We will just keep watching him and make sure he doesn't drop any further on the charts. His height is 32.5 inches which maintains him in the 50th percentile.

At 18 months M is into everything. He is so strong willed and has an attitude that could fill a body ten times his size. I often think that he, as one child, is more challenging then the twins. I definitely have lost that laid back baby. He is very smart and physically way ahead of his peers. There is nothing this kid can't do. He follows his siblings around everywhere and DEMANDS to be able to do whatever they do. He LOVES his brother. M is still very cuddly and loves to just sit and be held. He still nurses once or twice a day. We still co-sleep and M's sleep schedule stinks.

A few weeks ago M finished all his evaluations for his speech. He is quite delayed with expressive speech only - actually excels in other areas - but since there is a familial history of therapy, they qualified him. We had to jump through a bunch of insurance hoops but finally we have everything approved and now we are just waiting on a therapist assignment. I hope that with early intervention, M won't need to be in therapy into his school years like S.

So, the problem with getting a picture of M...he won't sit still. I will have to get some this weekend outside where I don't have to depend on a flash. Most the ones I took tonight were horribly blurry :0(.

Hey, I got one without blur!!

My Biannual Post

Today was dentist day. The twins and M got to see their dentist, who for the most part they love.

M wasn't thrilled but the first visit is more of a general assessment. See how many teeth he has, a little fluoride treatment and play with the tools. The dentist was a little concerned that one of his front teeth projects outwards a bit, something I already knew, but nothing to do but watch it. I am pretty sure M will be my braces kid.

K, of course was fine. She has never had work done. She has never had an issue. Perfect teeth every time. She DID NOT get her teeth from me.

Sadly, S got my teeth. Crummy, useless teeth. Again today S was found to have several cavities. Usually she does them the same day in the office, but she said there was too much work. I had to make two more additional hour-long appointments for him :0( Poor kid.

S got sealants about two years ago but cavities keep coming up around them. So in addition to a larger cavity up front, the dentist is actually going to put fillings in all his molars. She said that since for the most part these are preventive, they won't go deep and shouldn't even need anesthesia.

You know, I'm glad K has perfect teeth. Otherwise I'm sure the dentist would think that I didn't care for S's teeth at all. You know, it pretty evident when looking at the two of them that sometimes it doesn't matter what you do, if you have crappy teeth, it won't help all that much.

Totally Forgot!

On Friday March 4th M officially said his first word. We were at CFA when a little girl walked by M. He waved his hand and said "Hi". I had to do a double take!

Now I know this is pretty late for a first word, but Better Late than Never!!

Back to Worrying

M is now 14.5 months. He has followed in the twins footsteps in that he is speech delayed. The problem is that the twins finally did start with their first words at 13 months. M is still not talking.

I knew it was an issue, but I didn't think it was necessarily a problem, until today. I had a friend who is a speech therapist come and evaluate him today. She is a good friend who has been around since M's birth and had expressed some concerns over M not talking. She came today and did two different speech tests on him. On one he scored exceptionally low - like at the level of a 6 month old. On the other he scored at the level of an 11 month old. So at the very least he is almost 6 months behind where he should be.

More concerning was realizing how behind he was. I knew he didn't speak, but when she asked about babbling and gestures etc, it hit me that he doesn't do that. She was with us for an hour and she heard no real speech sounds. He should have been babbling and making more noises. He wasn't. It also hit me that at one point he did make those sounds and now he doesn't. When he was an infant my family and I used to comment about how vocal he was. About how he would never be delayed because look at how much he 'spoke'. What happened to that boy?

Another thing he used to do is gesture. Wave bye, shake his head 'no', play peek a boo. Not so much anymore. Infact it's usually very hard to get him to do any of these anymore.

So now I sit here worried. I try to figure out when it started to slow down. When did he change? He is an overall happy baby, who is interactive, loves attention and plays all the time with the twins or I. He is able to communicate his needs to me, but he does break down and whine a lot which my friend thinks is out of frustration because he can't speak. He makes good eye contact, loves to be cuddled on and is a very sweet boy. But now I worry. I worry that something more than a speech delay is at play here. Why did he regress? The twins never did that and until today I never realized that M did that.

I think it was around 10 months. In addition to the slow down in speech and gesturing, this was about the time that he went from sleeping through the night to back to up every 3 to 4 hours at night to nurse - which he is still doing. I remember him being sick when the sleeping thing occurred but it was a simple cold and nothing that caused me much concern or even a doctors visit.

I just hope this is a simple speech issue and that there isn't some bigger problem lurking. Anyone who is a mom can understand my feeling of fear/panic/concern/sadness/worry. You never want anything to be wrong with your little ones and when it's all of a sudden brought to your attention...well you begin to feel a little overwhelmed.

Tooth #7

It came so quietly that I really could have missed it. While M was playing on the floor with his big grin I caught the white little corner. He now has the four teeth on the bottom, this time the one to the right of his two front teeth. Now we need to get the tooth right above this one to gain some symmetry :0)

Tooth #6

We have tooth number six. Another top tooth, the one to the left of his front teeth. He looks funny because he has six teeth, but they are his front teeth, and both the top and bottom tooth to the left. So...he's a little lopsided :o)

The doctor mentioned that it looked like his teeth were coming in pretty crooked, which I had noticed but was trying to ignore, and that it was a good indicator of braces in his future. Bummer. The twins and I have very straight teeth and the donor stated he never had braces, so I guess Max had to be special. He has his first dental appointment in a month or two so we will see what she says.

Tooth Number Four and Five

On Monday November 29th, Max's fourth tooth finally broke through. It was his first top tooth; the front right one. I think this one had been bothering him as he has constantly been chewing on something.

Then this morning, Max's second front tooth broke through. There is another hard knot beside this one, so we may be seeing tooth number six soon!

Mookie is Walking!

Finally! The kid who I swore would be walking by the end of September is finally deciding to use his ability and try the walking thing. Of course he was walking all over the house 5 or 6 steps at a time, but when I tried to film the event, he was more interested in crawling.

Here is today's attempt at documenting his huge milestone!

Tooth Number Two and Three

This morning tooth number two and three popped through. They are on the bottom, the two to the left of the first tooth.

So he now has his two front bottom teeth, and one more to the left :0)

My boy is growing up.

We Finally Have A...

Tooth!!

At 10 months, 1 week and 1 day Max finally broke his first tooth. You can barely see it but when you look REAAALLLYYY closely you can see it on the bottom right. I think the left one will be out by the end of the week. Honestly though, at this point you can feel them more than see them.

This will be an interesting month as Max also has 4 very hard white lumps on the top of his gums...anyone want to venture at how many teeth little man will have by the end of October??