13 (and a half) months old

Whew, I am late in posting this.

Frankly, I wasn't sure if I should post about this or not, but I'm going to anyway.

Phoebe is going to be tested for a delay in communication.

Easter weekend, Chris and I both came to the realization that something was a little "off" with Phoebe. She had learned how to clap and wave, but had stopped doing both. She didn't point, she didn't have a single recognizable word for anything or anyone. She didn't have a single baby sign or gesture letting us know what wanted. These all were getting us pretty alarmed.

It was even more apparent when I looked back at my blog and read all the things Charlotte was doing at the same age. Charlotte didn't have more than a couple words at the same time, but she knew signs, she pointed, she made it clear she understood a lot of what we were saying. In addition, we had our friends over for Easter. Their daughter is a month older than Phoebe, and we were blown away with how interactive she was. She communicates by pointing and by pretty clearly saying a few words (ball, Dada, Mama, etc.).

Even before they had come over, I had already emailed Phoebe's doctor with our concerns. He called me first thing the next morning, saying that she should be tested for hearing loss and that we should fill out a questionnaire related to certain milestones 12 month old babies should be meeting. Phoebe's hearing is totally normal, as we suspected. And it was clear, going through the questionnaire, that she's really behind on communication skills, although she's probably far ahead with fine motor skills.

So we're going to a 90 minute evaluation by one of the few developmental pediatricians in Northern California. It's not until the week we get back from Greece, but I'm glad that they're taking this seriously.

That being said, Phoebe has made amazing progress in the past three weeks since we started inquiring into all of this. She is much more interactive with us. She laughs. She can make the sound of an elephant trumpetting and she can do it without us prompting her first. She has started waving again. She says "uh oh" now when she drops things. She says hi. She says Dada when Chris comes in the room. She doesn't really point, but she does stretch out her hand open-fisted when she wants something. She understands a lot, like hat, shoes, socks, and probably many more words that we don't know about.

She has started walking. She definitely wasn't behind on gross or fine motor skills, but it's still great to see her progressing in that area because Dr. M said that if she regresses in gross motor skills, it's definitely something of serious concern. So anyway, Phoebe will toddle about 5 to 10 steps and then fall down and continue crawling. She's just started figuring out how to stand up without holding on to anything, so we know full-on walking isn't far behind.

We wonder if Phoebe didn't get a lot of interaction when she was a D's daycare. We certainly suspect that that might be the case with the amount of TV that was purportedly watched. Her new daycare lady, Miss S, is much better. She tells me everyday (and even texts me) when Phoebe does something new. Phoebe kicks her legs excitedly when we drop her off in the morning and Miss S seems just as excited to see Phoebe. The other kids there love her and call her "Pee Wee" It's pretty cute.

We're still definitely going forward with the evaluation at the end of May, even though it's clear that Phoebe is progressing rapidly. My opinion is that the evaluation certainly can't hurt and probably will help. And I'm so happy that we're working on this now instead of, say, waiting until her next well baby visit at 18 months.

Phoebe, cute and as perfect as can be.

Charlotte Fever Redux

Charlotte has somehow reinfected herself with strep A and the same scarlet fever rash has reoccurred. This happened 48 hours after Charlotte drank her last dose of antibiotics.

At this point any of the following are possible:
1) She reinfected herself from her toothbrushes, which we didn't throw away (we have now!).
2) Chris or I have it, but are not showing symptoms.
3) The antibiotics didn't do quite the trick.

They're starting her on a different type of antibiotics to rule out number 3. He doesn't think we need to be checked out because we're all healthy and we're not showing any symptoms.

So yeah, another two days of being home from school and work. Is this Groundhog Day?

Five more weeks until vacation, but who's counting?

Charlotte Fever

Hi Everyone,

I hope you had a fantastic Easter. Ours was great, although it got off to a rocky start.

Charlotte came home from daycare on Wednesday wiped out. One of the teachers remarked how she napped for two hours and then laid down on a bench while the rest of the kids were playing outside. Charlotte almost never naps anymore, so we knew she was getting sick. She also complained of a sore throat.

On Thursday morning, she came into our room desperately thirsty. I also noticed that she was scratching at the skin near the waistband of her pajama pants. After closer inspection, it was pretty clear that she had a rash forming all over her body.

Because Chris had stayed home with her the previous week when she had thrown up in the middle of the night, it was my turn to stay home. I first rushed off to work to print off some things I could do at home. When I got back, Chris had been doing some digging on the Internet and thought that maybe she had Scarlet Fever. I laughed it off because not even two weeks prior, I had watched an episode of Girls in which Lena Dunham's neurotic character swears that she had diagnosed herself with scarlet fever as a child thanks in part to watching Little Women.

However, I called the advice nurse anyway, who upon hearing my description of the symptoms, decided to schedule a doctor's appointment just in case. Turns out? Yep, scarlet fever and strep throat. It's not an old timey disease after all. Scarlet fever happens to be a manifestation of the streptococcus bacteria and is easily treatable with antibiotics. However, in the pre-antibiotics days, it could definitely be a fatal disease, even causing those afflicted to contract serious side effects like endocarditis. That's ultimately what Beth March of Little Women succumbed to.

Twenty-four hours after the first dose of antibiotics and Charlotte was the same little ball of energy we know. She spent all of Friday endlessly peppering Chris with questions about the movies she was watching; this was a 180 degree change from Thursday when she was so lethargic she passed out on the couch for nearly three hours.

What I find hilarious is that Charlotte has trouble pronouncing "sk" words like school, scared, or skating. Instead, she says shool, shared, shating. (Side story: last week I tried to get her to say "scared" and she said "I can't say that, but I can say afraid."). So naturally, scarlet fever equals Charlotte fever.

 

I, for one, am happy to say good riddance to March. With the daycare debacle and the never-ending sickness of at least one of us, it's been a rough month. I cannot wait until Friday, when we go to our friends' wedding in the mountains for a weekend of spring skiing, catching up with dear friends, and a break from our darling daughters. I'm actually taking a vacation day and not a work from home because the daycare is closed/one daughter is sick/the other daughter is sick/I'm sick. We're so grateful to my mom coming up to stay with her cute granddaughters.