my sweet baby Jason

On Thursday morning Jason had his 18-month appointment, on his actual 18-month "birthday". He weighed in at 24lbs 13oz and was 30.5 in tall. The doctor never said anything about his size, but we spent a lot of time talking about his development. Being that he's already in early intervention it doesn't seem as if there is anything we should pursue at this time regarding that, but she did suggest that I ask for a re-evaluation when the time comes in case he would qualify for additional services at that time. She did bring up his hearing (obviously because it could be connected to his speech delay) and suggested that we do an "audiological work-up". She also said that it's probably just a murmur, but she'd like us to go to a pediatric cardiologist. I had been stressing about his vaccines, but luckily he was not due for any.

I got home and spent the next couple of hours on phone with the insurance company and trying to locate and schedule appropriate doctors for the specialty appointments. Luckily we were able to get them both scheduled within the next 3 weeks, so not too bad overall. I feel like slowly I've taken on a full-time job of scheduling appointments, calling insurance, waiting on hold, attending doctors meetings, reading literature, etc.

I did later look up his stats, and it seems as if his weight dropped from the 87th percentile at 6 months to the 33rd at 18 months. His height is in the 3rd percentile. I'm so used to big babies (Tyler was really big for a long time, Jason was until he started eating solids at 6 months) so it was sort of a surprise. He is chubby for his actual height though, but people are always guessing that he's somewhere between 9 and 12 months.

Maybe I'm just freaking myself out, but I've become increasingly worried about my sweet baby boy. I see him regressing in so many areas. First it was his speech (which hasn't returned much, and when he does learn a new skill, he loses something else). His walking hasn't improved much in the last 6 months, and he often falls now for no apparent reason (no fluid in his ears either). He is now afraid of slides and swings. He will bang his head on the couch and smack himself in the head. But he's still there and I still fall in love with him more each day. He has such a sweet demeanor and he tries so hard. I guess in many ways he still seems like a little baby.

Like I said, hopefully I'm just freaking myself out for no good reason. I know the cardiology request threw me for a loop. Probably nothing, but I had heart surgery when I was 4, so it's hard not to think that it could be something more than a murmur. And it didn't help to have a mother of a child with autism tell me that her son developed normally and then slowly started regressing in all areas. I always told myself (since I started suspecting something was wrong many, many months ago) that I thought at least autism wasn't a possibility because he was so social, but this mom told me that her son's social skills were one of the last things to regress. Wasn't exactly what I needed to hear yesterday. If I could ever get this child weaned I would certainly benefit from a few drinks right now!

On to a new topic...After school we met up with some Junior Women's members and their kiddos (including some of Tyler's friends) to do a park clean-up at Brooks field. The kids thought it was a lot of fun (except when Tyler fell in a puddle and later got upset because kids called him a "4 1/2 year old") and we earned some money for JWA.


Thankfully we were able to spend the majority of the afternoon and evening outside. My little men love the outdoors, as they should!