2 Year Check-up

Meritt finally had her 2 year well visit with Dr. Yap on Monday. I think when we scheduled it they were already so booked & then Dr. Yap went on vacation, so her appointment was a couple weeks later this time.

She was such a big girl and did so great!

Weight - 28.4 lbs - approx 75th percentile

Height - 36 in (wow, 3 feet!) - approx 85 percentile

Head - i can't ever remember, but it was normal around 70th %

Of course, he said everything looked & sounded great! She was a lot friendlier with him this time & was really saying words & trying to talk to him. :) She is now drinking 2% milk & likes it just fine. We also talked about her speech & he has no doubt that she can hear fine....not only because her ears are so incredibly clear & she's never had an ear infection.....but because she would immediately respond when asked to do an animal noise or something that she knows. She had to get 2 shots because 1 was the one they give to kids that go to daycare. We plan on starting her 2 days a week on Thursday.

Then this afternoon we had Meritt's first speech appointment with the actual Speech Therapist. We didn't feel that the other lady was doing enough toward helping her speech, so we requested a Speech Therapist to start seeing her. The other lady was an Early Childhood Intervention Specialist & we weren't seeing much progress. The new Speech Therapist is Nancy & she's wonderful!! We seriously got more out of one session with her than we did in 2 months with the other lady. She could definitely see some improvements since she saw her at the very first visit a few months back, such as her not jabbering in long sentences. She has started saying a few more words over the last couple weeks & it's very exciting. The main thing we need to work on are sounds & getting her to listen better, which will help her respond better. She mentioned things that could be affecting her speech....sippy cups (if she still sucks on them like a baby, which she does), chewing her food good (which she doesn't) and some other things that could be because her mouth muscles are as strong as they should be. She really encouraged us to not ask Meritt to repeat us or say words.....that we should just talk to her in single or few word phrases & use lots of sounds. The only things that kids have control over are what they eat and what they say. Parents usually don't force kids to eat something and we don't want to force them to talk either. Meritt uses lots of sounds instead of words, so she said that those are kind of nicknames and that they will probably be the last words she says correctly.....because she has said them a certain way for so long. Usually if we introduce her to a word she's never heard, she will more likely say it correctly. The hardest thing is not asking her to repeat us or say certain things.....but we have to just talk very simply to her and hope that she will respond on her own. Another thing Nancy noticed is that she is so developed in her motor skills & other aspects, so that is probably why she is slower at speech. She would rather do hand motions & dance than sing to a song. She is pretty independent....will play by herself or go get whatever it is that she wants instead of needing us to play with her all the time or getting us to go get something for her. We're not too concerned because we know she will eventually talk fine....it's just hard to communicate with her about some things when we can't understand her. Anyway....we're excited for her speech to improve a lot more & hopefully start potty training, too....before the new baby gets here. :)

Some new words that she is saying (and yes, some are very basic, but they've been the hardest to get her to say):

- Ball

- Whoa!

- See ya - sometimes because she hears us

- Pool - "cool"

- Where is it? - how she can say this but not some simple words...I don't know?

- Star - "gar"

- I see - she said this constantly when we were in Mexico when she saw something she liked

- Weeeee-weeee - usually when we're in the car or doing something fun like a ride/slide/etc.

- Cold - "coal"

- Hot - "cah"

- Eyes

- Ear - "ee-uh"

- Juice - "juh-juh"

- Night-night - "nigh-nigh"

- Tickle-tickle - "ticka-tick"

- Animals - she still only makes animal noises & no words

She also pretends to sleep all the time & it's so cute! She will lay her head down, say "nigh-nigh" and then make a snoring sound like "hah-shoo". :) It only lasts for a second & then she says "ticka-tick" because we usually act like we're tickling her to wake her up.

I guess that's about all that I can think of right now, but there will surely be more to come!