18 Months, 2 Weeks, 6 Days

I think i mentioned that when we had Henry's latest professional photos taken they didn't turn out quite as well as the others. At his previous sittings he was a happy guy and easily smiled for the camera-- thus lots of great pictures to choose from. This time he was scared to death of being up on the platform alone which means i'm in most of the pictures with him and he has a faint smile at best.

On the one-hand it's too bad the pictures aren't great, on the other hand i think i'll be able to look at his 18 month pictures when he's 18 and know what he was struggling with-- namely a fear of heights. He's not completely crazy about walking up stairs still, but he's definitely afraid of going down them. As my Mom said, it's too bad we don't live in a split-level house where he could tackle just a few steps at a time. Instead we have the steepest set of steps that could never make code with nary a handrail to hold onto. I don't even try to get him to walk down those, instead focusing on the outdoor steps and the steps down to Brenda's house.

I forgot to mention that Henry had his 18 month Ped. appointment last week. I really, really love the Pediatrician we finally seem to have clicked with. She's proactive enough to feel like she's alive (as opposed to our first) but not so proactive/reactionary that not meeting every single guideline sends you into panicked worrying.

First of all Henry is up to 23 lbs 12 oz which is around the 33rd percentile. He's no strapping football player, and we won't be moving up to a booster seat anytime soon, but at least he's not considered underweight anymore. He has grown taller though. He's now up to 33 inches which is around the 80% percentile for height. So, what we have here is a mini-JT, tall and skinny-- who would have guessed!

I did talk to the Ped. about our concerns around Henry's language development. I came prepared with his list of words and signs and she said that even without the signing he made it to the range of "normal" for spoken words at his age (5-15). She also said that with signing she considered that a second language so you had to take into account a blended amount of communication. She did say that there is generally an explosion in language between 18-24 months and that if we didn't seen any signs of this by our next appointment, we could explore some assessment options. For now though it's nice to be re-assured that our gut feelings were right and that Henry is just developing at his own pace thank you very much.