18 Month Well Check

This guy loves lemons!  He can even say the word pretty well.

With the other children, I wrote down every word they said until I made it to one hundred.  Drew is hard because he didn't say many words for so long and now he will try to repeat almost any word.  He went from saying a couple dozen words to repeating nearly any word.  However, he really doesn't say things as clearly as the other children did either.  If he uses the word on his own, I may not understand it. I am listing the most common words that I can usually understand here.  He is learning about 5 new words a day, on average.

lemon
milk
dirty
wall
ceiling
shoe
water
milk
bear
butt
one (answer for his age with his finger too)
nine
dinosaur (sounds like "dy-nor")
me (This is my favorite because he does it while raising his hand when I ask the kids if they want some specific thing.)
Genna ( sounds either like "Nenna" or "Denna")
cheese
please

He is making more animal sounds too.  Lion, elephant, dog, cat, horse, frog, and sheep are the most common.  I think I previously mentioned that he has mastered all body parts.  My personal favorite is when he shows us where his bottom is and says, "Butt."  He has also finally mastered repeating to me his two Mass rules.  Mastering following them is another story, but he is getting better.  If I ask him to tell me his Mass rules, he will put his finger to his lips and say, "Shh," and point down and sometimes say, "Mom."  His two rules are to "be quiet and stay with mom."  Seeing that he wasn't going to be an early talker I made the abbreviated hand signs to go along with it so I know he is listening and knows what to do.

For his 18 month well check he was a stellar patient.  I prepped him like I always do and told him what the doctor would do.  He was all smiles and "Hi's" to the doctor when she came in.  He got a serious face when he was being examined, but was super quiet and compliant with all that she did.  Then came the shot.  I try to keep this as separate from the doctor experience as I can since, growing up, I always related the two things which made my doctor visits highly stressful for many years.  It makes it easier that we go to a different room and have a "shot lady" (occasionally a "shot guy") administer the shots instead of the doctor and nurse we see regularly.  I told Drew ahead of time that he would get a shot in the leg (I would point and push on his leg a bit) and then he would say, "Ow," and then I would give him a treat.  I told him this enough times that he could demonstrate it to me when asked.  He sat right down in my lap and watched his shot.  He tensed and whined when it was given, but he didn't cry.  He actually forgot to say "Ow" until later.  I promptly gave him his first lollipop ever and he was drooling all over that and never cried.  He is such a touch guy.

He weighed 28 lbs and was 33.5 inches tall.  He was 75 percentile across the board.  Isaac was always higher than that in height (90-95 percentile, 29 lbs and 35 inches.)  I could tell Drew was shorter because of the way the clothes fit him differently.  I still have to roll his 2T pants, and Isaac's fit by this time.  Since they were born just a month apart during the year, they wear the same clothes at the same time.