The Little Man at 15 Months

We had Charlie’s 15 month appointment last week and other than two infected ears, he’s in tip-top condition.  As we all know, he’s big – he’s 34 inches tall (way off the charts – above the 98th percentile; Ellie was 32.5 inches), he weighs almost 28 pounds (a mere 85th percentile; Ellie weighed almost 27 lbs), and his noggin has finally dropped onto the charts at the 95th percentile (Ellie’s was also in the 95th percentile).  This was actually the first appointment that Dr. Chad didn’t re-measure his head, convinced that the nurse made a mistake.

We did subject the little man to one vaccine this time and he didn’t even flinch!  I was cowering in the corner, pretending to look for something in the diaper bag, while Daddy held Charlie down.  And it turns out that I was the biggest baby in the room…by far -- Charlie was all smiles, even while being jabbed with a needle!

The appointment was a bit of an eye-opener for me because one of the developmental milestone questions was “can Charlie point to different body parts?”  And I realized that I have never (not once!) told Charlie where his nose, eyes, ears, etc. are.  Poor second child!  He just seems like such a baby – I can’t believe that he’s old enough to be pointing to his nose.  But then I look back at what Ellie was doing at the same age and the difference is unbelievable.  After all, by 15 months she said nearly 60 words (http://ellieandcharlie.blogspot.com/2009/05/words-words-and-more-words.html) and started speaking in 2-word sentences (http://ellieandcharlie.blogspot.com/2009/05/this-week-in-words-part-ii.html).  Charlie, on the other hand, doesn’t really have any words other than “Gacie”  (it’s finally become a “g” sound, but still missing the “r”).  He can say “go, go, go,” and “wastha?” (what’s that?), but not reliably.  Just recently, however, he started picking up signs.  Predictably, his favorite sign is “eat;” but he also knows the signs for “more,” “again,” “all done,” and “sleep.”  I need to study up on other signs and be better about using the signs for “please” and “thank you” because he loves being able to communicate – he just gets the biggest grin on his face when he signs!  Perhaps he’ll learn to sign “hey, Mom, how about teaching me where my nose is?!”