18 month update at 19 months

Well it practically took until 19 months to get her 18 month appointment because of snow.  We had to change the appointment twice.  Argh.  Anyway I wouldn't say it was our most stellar appointment.  I knew it wasn't going to go great so at least I was prepared.  Generally E is doing ok.  She was healthy for the appointment which considering she has been pretty much sick almost the whole winter and fall is saying something.  My major concerns were her lack of growth and her slow language development. 

So Ella's weight. it went down which as you all know is not the direction a growing baby's weight should go.  She was about 22 lbs at 15 months.  She was 21 at her 18 month appointment which really was 18.5 months.  Obviously she should have gained weight.  She has been following a curve at about the 15th percentile for her actual age which is pretty amazing since she was well bellow the average for 30 weekers at birth.  That is until this visit.  She is now at bellow the 5th.  The fact that she dropped is the problem really not that she is in the 5th.  So the doctor put us on a high fat high calorie diet to pack the weight on.  So now we are putting cream in her milk (which she loves by the way) and butter in just about everything.  I think it is working and we go back in for a weight check in a few weeks.  How we will get her to drink regular milk after this I will never know.  I also have had to be very careful not to pack on the pounds along with Ella.  I think that has been limited in its success.

As for the speech E had about 6 words at the time of her visit.  Mama, Ma, Bye Bye, Uh Oh, namina (banana), didi (dog)and apple.  Our doctor wanted to see her using 15-20 words so back to early intervention we go.  We just had our intake interview yesterday and the team will come out and evaluate her on Monday.  In the couple of weeks since she saw the doctor she has pick up some more words which has been nice but still not where she needs to be.  I spoke with the speech pathologist at school and she said that she should be using 30 words by now at almost 20 months.  So we will see if she qualifies for services.  I think she is doing pretty well in her other areas.  When we last were evaluated at about 14 months she was not walking so she was at 11 months for gross motor.  Now she is walking up a storm so I am interested in what she should be doing now.  Her fine motor has come along so far and she is really into coloring and doing puzzles.  I do need to keep a good list this week for all her words.  In addition to the words like up and bun bun that she has pick up we also realized that she is also speaking spanish.  So some of the words we thought were babble are actually words.  They speak Spanish at daycare so it is not surprising that she has picked some of them up.  So now her additional vocabulary is more (with the sign) and mas, pero, manzana, kitty, meow and up.  She also howls like a wolf and whoos like an owl.  I will have the low down next week as well as if we qualify for services.  I hear great things about speech therapy so if we need it I am ready to get going.