Ben-18 Months

Ben's 18 Month Stats

Height: 32.6 in (1.6 in increase in 3 months) 50th percentile

Weight: 24.8 lbs (1.9 lb increase in 3 months) 30th percentile

Some pictures from July

 This one cracks me up every time.  Gotta love our uncle Jake! 

 Hanging with Grandpa Mike while watching the iPad.  

Some AWESOME pictures from church.  You do what you gotta do to keep the kid happy. 

Something to note in Ben's development lately is his speech development.  At his 18 month check-up, I told the pediatrician that Ben has ZERO words.  Many people might think it's because McKenna does all the talking for him.  But she doesn't.  He points, grunts, nods, shakes his head, does 15-20 signs, and can pull you where he wants you to go, but NO words yet.  He doesn't even really babble.  No consonant vowel pairs at all.  You get the point.  :)  So, the doc said let's get him evaluated.  The evaluation was free and actually pretty fun.  They played some games, asked him to point to things in pictures, did some easy puzzles, and asked him lots of questions to test his vocabulary understanding.  They found out that he's right on or in most cases above average in many areas of development such as gross and fine motor, cognitive development, social/emotional, self help and receptive language.  He had to have a moderate to severe delay to qualify for early intervention services, but since his is only mild, we just have to wait.  They were very nice and helpful and said if I still don't feel like he's where he should be in 3-4 months we can bring him in again and they'll just update his file.  They also gave us a booklet with about 10 strategies to help things move along.  Basically, we need to frustrate him more and let him know his current methods of communication aren't working anymore.  One thing's for sure, I'm pretty darn excited to hear his cute little voice whenever he does decide to talk and I'm very interested to hear what his first word will be. :)  

Other development:

• Almost has all his teeth (minus two year molars of course).  We're still waiting on his upper right molar.
• Loves to give kisses, especially to babies.
• Just became interested in trains.
• Doing very well in nursery at church.
• Loves to read books.
• Starting to actually sit through some kids TV shows.
• Loves being outside and has mostly done well with swimming this summer.
• Plays well with McKenna when she's not teasing him to death.
• Signs: dad, mom, eat, milk, drink, cracker, more, all done, shoes, dog, horse, bird, water, banana, cereal, sleep, ball, blanket.
• Loves to clap and celebrate.
• Really good climber!  He can do things at the park that McKenna's not brave enough to do.
• One nap a day.  Usually 2-3 hours.  
• Pats the front of his diaper to let me know he's poopy.
• Uses his binky only at night and nap time (and long car rides).