Just realised I never updated with his 2-year stats and why we were so busy on his birthday.
Well, we had a developmental check at the children's hospital as part of the follow up for his head operation. He is generally doing GREAT. Very switched on and thoughtful, he whizzed through simple puzzles that he's never had a chance to play with at home before, and his motor skills are awesome. He can thread beads, stack little blocks, post coins into a piggy bank, all kinds of things. He was pretty worn out and exhausted by the end of the day, but really enjoyed a special birthday lunch at Mc Donalds!
He's not talking heaps yet though, so we've been referred to speech therapy, just to make sure everything's on track. Given that he's only just 2, and a boy (boys generally are slower to start talking) we're not overly concerned, he does want to communicate with us, and he's far more interested in sounds (woof, moo, ding ding, beep etc) than he is in proper words! But given the LOOOOOOONG waiting list, it will be better if we get him into the system now, and have him assessed soon, even if nothing's going on and he's just stubborn (which I suspect) so that if he does actually need some speech help, he can get it sooner.
Part of that was having his hearing checked, which we got done last Friday. Again he did pretty well, but he's old enough to ignore the test sounds in favour of the toys he's playing with, and too young to give us a cooperative response (eg: tell us when you hear the noise) as he doesn't really understand what hearing is yet. So there were some sounds he definitely appeared to hear, but as he seemed to ignore them, they couldn't really be marked as heard. It was the higher pitch at very soft volume that he was ignoring, but he looked at me and made his signal for 'mouse' (not that we're teaching sign, but he's invented one of his own) when it was playing, so he definitely heard it, so again it's not a big concern, especially as he definitely heard and responded to it a year ago. He just didn't respond within the framework of the hearing test. We're going back again in 3 months to see if he'll respond better, and also hopefully teething will be over, which will take away a lot of the irritation/distraction in his head.
Of course since getting a referral to a speech therapist (the evaluation is 22/7, but we may not get an actual therapy appointment for 6-9 MONTHS) he has come up with a few new words, bear, ball, ow and Babar (the cartoon about the elephant family) furthering my theory that he's just doing things in his own time!
Now, some facts and figures...
He's about 13kg, (28ish pounds) and I think (I can't find his book to double check) 83cms tall (32 inches - not quite 3foot!) His head hasn't grown ANY, which means he is finally (for the first time ever) BACK ON THE GROWTH CURVE, he's high-end above 95% but he is back within a normal growth curve - hooray!
What else? He's still in size 1 (12-18 month) but is beginning to transition into some size 2 (24mth) for some things, he will probably be fully in 2's by the end of winter. Oh, and still eating everything in sight as usual. He LOVES weetbix, and would eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I let him.
He is in love with the Wiggles, and knows all the moves to Hot Potato, he can dance through the whole song, and uses the dance move for 'cold spaghetti' to ask for spaghetti for dinner (which he loves!) We can also sort of play Patty Cake rhymes with him, he has an awesome sense of rythym, he keeps time perfectly the whole rhyme, or he deliberately speeds up or slows down his hands to make me adjust how I'm saying the rhyme, and is very pleased when I do!
Haven't got any new photos of him though :( a friend has taken plenty, but I've got to remember to actually get a copy from her!
So that's where we're at at the moment, waiting for a speech assessment later in the month, and generally playing and having fun!
