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18mo Doctor's Appointment

T.J. and I took Joseph to the pediatrician today for his 18mo appointment. Stats:

Weight: 19lb 4oz (well below chart)
Height: somewhere between 32.25-33.5" (they measured him 2x) (~50%)
Head: 18.5" (~25%)

Doc threw the "Failure to Thrive" hat in the ring today. I knew it was coming, but frankly it still makes me mad. If there is one thing that Joseph is doing lately, it's thriving. He has great gross and fine motor skills, his verbal skills are developing, and he has a fantastic personality. Heaven forbid that he'd rather play than eat. Ugh.

But, the "tests" for this aren't very invasive, so we consented to starting them. First, they taped a bag to his groin so they could collect a urine sample (poor Joseph). Then we went to the lab and he had blood drawn and they did 4 or 5 different panels. The nurses there were hilarious - basically just rolled their eyes when we told them why we were there. I told them I brought T.J. so that the Doc could see that he was perfectly fine, but it didn't work!

So far nothing's coming back overly alarming. There are a few things abnormal, but they are mostly very close to the norms. We should hear back from the Doc next week on their opinion. If they do find something, we'll have to do more bloodwork, I guess.

My diagnosis: Skinny father. :)

After the doctor, T.J. and I had dentist appointments, so we had the dentist look at Joseph's teeth. His top teeth are all dark near the gum, and I was worried that it was decay. He says it just looks like stain, though he was confused by it. He said it's probably due to a bump he took to his gums as an infant or to vitamins. I'm glad that it won't require dental work, but bummed that it appears that Joseph will have dark teeth until his milk teeth fall out. Oh well, could be worse!

Can I get a what-what?

I was going through old posts today, and started looking at belly pictures. Can I just say how bizarre it is? Then I looked at the *last* one, and almost fell out of the chair.

Good god. Even I am wondering if there were twins in there!

No wonder that I thought the rest of me looked pretty good.

Making Toys

I follow a blog about child development (well, a mommy blogger who knows about development) and she had some suggestions for fine motor skill toys the other day. Joseph is very adept at using manipulating small objects, and I'm always trying to figure out how to give him new things to do with those skills. I read it, thought "wow, that's great" and promptly stole the ideas for myself.

Here are Joseph's new "toys":

Shape sorters: I had some empty containers that I washed out, and cut appropriate holes in the top (I do not recommend kitchen knives, though I did manage to keep all of my fingers). In one I put 50 popsicle sticks that I picked up at our local variety store on a whim a couple of months ago

This is too easy... where else could they go?

I know, my EARS!

(I'm positive that instead of stitches, our emergency room visits will include removing objects from Joseph's orifices)

The second one I cut a round hole and filled up the bucket with... wine corks. Hey, we have to do something with them, right? Cork boards are so passe. Ha! I did use the synthetic ones so they weren't full of old wine at least. Does that count for something?

Seriously, Mom? Don't blame me for how I turn out.

Feeding Tube: Empty paper towel roll, pipe cleaners, and voila! Fine motor skill tuning device. Joseph liked that quite a bit! I'm sure he'll find other stuff to shove through the roll, as well.



Hope this helps someone else!

My Little Engineer

Just... One... More

Concentrate, don't look away...

I bet you can tell what happened next. No picture, sorry!

FO: Faux Cranky Pants

Each new thing I knit is cuter than the last. These late-in-the-year babies are going to benefit from their birth dates!

This one is for my friend Kati, who's due in a few weeks. It's a diaper cover for cloth diapers. There is a company who makes "cranky pants" and they sell for $80/ea! Before you say that I should sell these, I'll have you know that I spent almost 15 hours on them. You do the math. I don't work for minimum wage, people. (Only for free for special friends!) Since they live in Houston, I went for shorts instead of pants.

Here is the pattern.

Business in the front

Party in the back!

Attention Span!

Joseph's always had a pretty good attention span - I can't remember a time that he didn't sit still for books - but today we read an entire Berenstain Bears book. Those have lots of words! I think he liked it.

We went out for dinner, as well, and he was amazing. He colored a bit, read his books, and ate most of his taco. I picked a place with about 248 TV's, and I think that helped, too! Though honestly, he was more interested in the other diners.

Daddy should be home in a couple of hours, and we're having a quiet weekend. Joseph is getting some pictures taken tomorrow by a local photographer (free through our mom's group!) and T.J. is golfing early on Sunday. Maybe we'll hit the botanical garden, zoo, or aquarium this weekend... if we feel like braving the crowds!

FO: Comfy Cowl

I took a break from baby knitting to make a cowl for Debbie upon request. It's was super simple, and the yarn is so soft, squishy and fabulous! I'm sure it'll keep her warm on those long winter snow shoveling outings.

timer = bad focus, but the color is correct at least.

Close up of the seed stitch

Good in Theory

Last night I spent some time reading about Elimination Communication. It's basically trying to figure out when your baby goes to the bathroom and getting them to the toilet before they pee on you.

Many people advocate leaving your older baby pants free at home, so you (and they) can tell when they pee right away and hopefully avoid a mess by seeing the signs that it's about to happen.

I thought, heck, that shouldn't be too hard, right?

It's OK, you can laugh, it is funny.

1 carpet accident, and 4 (FOUR!) kitchen floor accidents, and 2 overflows on the high chair (sitting on prefold) later, and I'm pretty convinced that Joseph will wear diapers until he's 16.

At least I should be able to teach him to do the cloth diaper laundry before then, right?

In the meantime, I was happy we had Resolve for Pet Stains on hand. Just another way babies are like dogs.

So Brave!

Two days ago, Joseph slid down the slide alone for the first time. I was so proud! Yesterday he went down a little baby-sized slide about 100 times at a playdate. He was so proud! Today we went to the park and he went straight for the BIG slide - I didn't get pics, but when I'd take him down with me, *I* would get nervous. Haha. Then he figured out it was faster to get to the small slide, so he went down this one about 15 times.

He also wanted to sit on the big-kid swings today, so I pushed him on those for a bit. He's not ready for it, but he liked to try like the big kids.