She is very advanced, you know

Last week was a busy week for Emmy! On Tuesday she had another check-up at the Developmental Clinic at the hospital where she was born. They offer this as a free service to preemies born at the hospital and they bring them back sometime after 6 months and then again sometime around 16-18 months. As it turns out Emmy was 18 months Monday so she was exactly 18 months for her evaluation this time around.

Again she met with an occupational, physical, and speech therapist and they evaluated her fine and gross motor skills, her social interaction, her speech, her eating, etc. She is 100% caught up to 18 months in ALL areas and in fact is ahead in most! Not that we were worried at all, but we were happy to hear it officially. And of course, now we can say "oh she's so advanced". Haha. The therapists were laughing at her faces she makes and impressed with how well she obeys/understands commands. They asked us if she had at least 20 words she could say, and we guessed yes, at least 20, but when we started counting later, we've gotten to at least 40 words that she can come up with on her own. Not that it matters, but it's funny to start going through the list. She's also very good at repeating, but not everything she repeats she remembers to say on her own.

Emmy went to school in the morning, as usual, and we picked her up about 11 for her 11:30 appointment. By the time she was actually "seen" (which involved playing with the therapists mostly) it was after 12, and by the time we left, she was falling asleep in her Daddy's arms. Imagine if she'd been more awake!

They did take note of our little tip-toe walker. She walked around on her tip-toes a lot when she was first starting to walk while holding onto us or the sofa, etc. Then when she started walking on her own, she walked more flat-footed, I'm sure for balance. Now that she is walking, and running, with confidence, the tip-toeing has returned. She WILL (and does) walk flat-footed, but she just doesn't like to, so the therapist told us just to make sure we stretch out the backs of her legs on occasion.

Then, on Wednesday was Emmy's 18 month check up with her pediatrician. Boy, she was not happy to see Dr. J, which is funny since she never does any of the "bad" stuff to Emmy (the nurses give the shots and prick the fingers!) . But she sure cried when Dr. J did the routine listening to her heart and lungs, looking in her eyes, etc. When she checked her ears, much to our surprise she found a bad ear infection in her left ear! We were so surprised. Her nose had been runny again since the weekend, but we hadn't noticed any other signs. She also had her flu shot and chicken pox vaccine. Not a fun visit! We left with an antibiotic prescription and we go back in a month for a recheck on her ear and a 2nd flu shot and one final vaccine.

Oh, I'm sure you want her stats...she is 29 1/2 inches tall and 19 lbs 6 oz. Yep, she's still under 20 lbs. But, she's grown taller and gained weight and she's following her own growth curve, just on the tiny end of things. Who cares?

The speech therapist did ask for Dr. J to check her upper frenulum as she thought it seemed attached. Dr. J confirmed that it is, but Emmy's isn't severe and she said most kids will fall and it will tear on it's own. To send her to a pediatric surgeon to have it clipped would require anesthesia, etc. and there's not much point since in all likelihood it will happen on it's own, bleed a lot, and feel better with a popsicle and a lot less risk, which was fine by us. My mom reminded me that it happened to me when I was 3 during a sandbox incident on the playground.

Needless to say, our very advanced child was a bit unpredictable the end of the week. I'm sure it's the combination of antibiotics and vaccines and maybe just general toddler cantankerousness, but she gave us quite a difficult time a couple of nights. Thursday night was the worst...we stayed up super late getting ready for a dinner party we were throwing for our friend Lizzie's 30th birthday (it's our thing...we stay up super late getting ready for things...we both work well late at night) and just as we were going to bed, Emmy woke up. And would not go back to sleep. Each of us maybe got 3-4 hours of sleep total...not good heading into another day of work and a dinner party for 12. But, the party was lots of fun and everything went well. And Emmy was in bed by 7 pm on Friday, but then back up at 6. Yuck.

So, we all spent Saturday being lazy in our jammies. Charles and I took turns letting each other sleep (he's also not feeling well...Emmy shared her runny nose with him). Man, we needed it. She was up a couple of times Saturday night, but thankfully last night we were back to our usual full night of sleep. Whew!