15 Month Appointment

Today was Carter’s 15 month appointment.  He’s 15 1/2 months old now, but this is the first available appointment he had that both Justin and I could go to.  I went from work to meet Justin and Carter at the doctor’s office.  Carter was in a super good mood.  We waited in the waiting room for maybe 5 minutes and then got called back.  As soon as we got into an exam room, I think the memories came rushing back to Carter and he realized what happens there.  He started crying as soon as the nurse came in and wanted to measure him and he cried on and off all the way until we put his pants on (which he knows means that he’s leaving).

Justin snapped a couple of pictures of us waiting on our doc to come in:

 

The stats threw us for a loop.  Carter has been tall and skinny his whole life.  His percentages in height have always been over 50% and most of the time was 75% or more, and his weight percentages usually hover around 25-30%.  At his 12 month appointment, he was measured at 30.5 inches which was 75%.  Justin and I left that appointment thinking that he wasn’t measured right because we have a measuring poster in his room and we happened to measure him that day and only got 28.5 inches.  We just dismissed it though.

So today he measured at 29.75 inches.  They even measured him twice because they noticed that he “shrunk” according to their records.  But sure enough, he is actually 29.75 inches, which puts him in the 10th percentile.  TENTH PERCENTILE.  We are in such disbelief!  He has been consistently tall his whole life and not only is this the first time he’s been less than 50%, but he’s barely even on the charts!!!!  This is just crazy to me!  Anyway, his weight was 23lbs 6oz, which is 25%.  Doc also noticed that Carter’s molars have cut through the skin and we should have his first year molars within days.  There have been very swollen bumps in his mouth for weeks so I’ve been wondering when they would break through but when Carter was crying one time, the doc  noticed white poking through on both sides of his mouth and said the molars were officially cutting.  This makes me happy because I’ve been dreading the molars coming through.  I’ve heard nothing but bad stories about how fussy babies are because of how much the molars hurt when they come through.  Makes sense.  Can you imagine what that feels like??  Anyway, Carter hasn’t been fussy at all so I’m extremely thankful!

The doctor said that he was well above average on developmental abilities, which I knew already.  Carter is so advanced.  He knows the difference between 4 different colors right now (yellow, green, purple and blue) and he also knows how to match up shapes to holes that the shapes fit into.  Example-he knows that the red circular toy goes into the hole shaped like a circle.  Same for the square and the triangle.  He knows 4 body parts (head, tummy, nose and teeth) and repeats pretty much everything we say, which has caused his vocabulary to expand drastically.  I believe there are two reasons for his advanced development:  1) Mommy and 2) Nana.  Nana used to be a teacher at our church for the three year old class, so she knows all about teaching young children and she works with him on things all the time since she has him everyday while I’m at work.  When he’s with me, we’re constantly working on things too.  The colors knowledge comes from me at bathtime.  We have colored bath letters and numbers and we go over all the colors during bath time.  Those 4 just happen to be the ones he picked up on first.  We’re now working on orange and red.  When I was home on maternity leave, I constantly worked with him on tummy time and rolling over both ways and he did of those ahead of schedule too.  It takes work and I’m exhausted most of the time, but I can see it paying off in his abilities. 

So overall, doc appointment went well.  We’ll go back again when he’s 18 months, which will be the end of June, but I think it will be the 2nd week of July before we can make it to the doctor.  I’ll definitely be interested to see how his height is then!