Doctor Visits

Tuesday was very, very busy! It was the big move-in day at the new shelter, plus curriculum night at Amelie's school, plus I'd scheduled James and Leah's well-child checks forever ago for that evening, since our doctor's office does evening appointments one day a week, but you have to book them way out in advance (before the grand move-in had been rescheduled or we'd gotten notice about curriculum night).

Anyway, Sam took Amelie to Ridgeway to learn about Individually Guided Education, and I took James and Leah to the doctor. I'll ask Sam if he took any pictures to make his own post! Ha!

James went first and everyone was very impressed with his spelling and drawing abilities :)

The doctor gave him the pen to test him copying some shapes for her and writing his name (right there on the exam table paper), but then she left the pen in the room while we were waiting on shots.

Vital statistics: 39.2 pounds (39th percentile); 3 feet, 5 inches tall (17th percentile)

He was so disappointed that he didn't weigh 40 pounds, since we said he could move to the booster seat if Dr. Swofford said he could at the appointment. I'm hoping that this spurs him to eat a better supper! Anyway, he'll go back with Leah at her 1-year appointment so he can get his kindergarten shots, and we said we'd weigh again then and he'll probably be able to.

Things James can do right now:

• Dress himself
• Do a summersault
• Stand & hop on one foot & kick a ball & hit a baseball 
• Draw a person with many details
• Write his first and last name
• Sound out some 3-letter consonant-vowel-consonant words
• Stay dry all night
• I don't know how high he can count - I'm pretty sure it's well up over 20*
• Knows our address, the first & last names of his parents & siblings & we've been practicing our phone number
• Still hanging on to some baby speech sounds, but uses many complex sentences and can carry on a conversation and tell a story intelligible to strangers.

Link to his 4-year checkup for comparison: http://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2016/09/doctors-visit.html *Okay, so when I looked at last year's doctor visit, he counted to 25, so I'm assuming he can still do that! Haha!

Next it was Leah's turn. The nurse took our picture (also pre-shots):

Vital statistics: 14 pounds, 11 ounces (19th percentile); 2 feet, 1 inch long (12th percentile), head circumference: 42.5 cm (53rd percentile)

Things Leah can do right now:

• Sitting up some (not super stable) 
• Army crawling! (I thought this came after sitting)
• Using a palmer and sometimes a pincer grasp (mostly to eat)
• Babbling lots of "Dadadada"
• Has doubled her birth weight and is trying new foods
• Definitely prefers familiar people and has some stranger danger (this seems early to me, too)
• Likes to bang her spoon on the table and splash in the bath
• I hadn't noticed if she's passing things from one hand to the other - I think so, but I need to pay attention and make sure - she does grab things with each hand and bring them to her mouth

Here's a link to her 4-month checkup for comparison: http://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2017/07/4-month-doctors-visit.html