Monday, February 4, 2008

Dr's Appt 1 down....how many to go?

First off ~ J I didn't get the pic taken....I was too busy making this for dinner last night!

Now to today's post.

Buddy had his 18 mos checkup this morning with three, (count them, one, two, three) shots at 8:30 am. So seeing that we have to drive WITH rush-hour Monday AM traffic we were out of the door E.A.R.L.Y. This was the first appt of four over the next two weeks that we have for either him or I. We arrive of course at the dr's office in record time (whatsupwiththat?). So we finish our breakfast in the dr's office and Buddy runs around in his jammies in there (why dress him if I'm going to undress him in the office???). When it's our turn we go back to the room I get him undressed to be weighed to discover the scale needs new batteries. Now mind you I have a n*ked boy I'm holding. Boys aren't known for their ability to NOT pee everywhere while undressed. Thankfully we keep him warm and covered enough while the nurse fetches another scale and all survive. We plop him on the scale to discover that he has LOST weight. Now if he were an overly chunky monkey that would not be a big deal. But he isn't and for an 18 mos old 1/2 a pound is a big deal. So we are back to journaling what he is eating, and we've now switched him from rice milk to Almond milk (which has slightly more calories per oz...). So Dr O wants to see him in 4-6 weeks for yet ANOTHER weight check. Half his problem is that the boy is SO active that he burns calories faster than I can dream. And while he eats (I know no other 18 mos old that will 2-1/2 scrambled eggs, a muffin & 1/2 a lg can of pears for breakfast) he may not simply be getting enough calories. (So on the way home I realize I need a calorie 'goal' for him. Not that I'm going to force X amount of calories into him every day ~ but just something to look towards in making decisions for him in what he'll eat. A phone call later I have said goal.) In the same conversation the ped and I talk about how this for him is unusual, b/c in today's society he's having to have talks with parents about their kids being overweight. How he would LOVE to see more kids choose fruits & veggies over other things at meals. How he wishes parents would stop serving junk to their kids. And while he says I don't want you just serving him empty calories we need to make sure he doesn't have a digestive problem thats causing him to NOT absorb calories/nutrients. If after the four weeks, we don't see an improvement we'll be heading to a GI to make sure all parts are in working order.
Back to the appt. We then discuss the fact that Buddy doesn't talk and why. Is it because A) his dear sister talks non-stop (meanwhile I've told her at least 8 times to be quiet), or B) he's just stubborn, or C) because of the meds he was treated with when he was at BBCH which have a very slight risk of causing hearing loss when kids are older? Because even though option C is a very slight risk, its a risk that exists and so we need to 'investigate it further'. It very well could be that he's just learned that certain tones from me mean X and he doesn't REALLY understand what we're saying. So we get a referral for a simple hearing screen (which I came home and scheduled for you guessed it NEXT WEEK ~ so yes folks that means we still have 4 appts in the next two weeks). If the hearing referral comes back with everything fine then we'll wait until he's 2 and start looking into a speech eval. We don't want to wait until he's 4 and realize we really should have done something about this a long time ago. We joke though that in Sept. Lovergirl is going to get on the school bus and go to school, and he's going to turn to me and just start talking non-stop.
The next question the ped asks is can he pick up small objects....my reply? The boy can stack cheerios. Enough said! (at least one thing was simple)

Tomorrow is the appt for his kidney ultrasound. THAT should be interesting.

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