15 Month Check Up

2.0 had his 15 month check up today.  All went very well.

Dr. Omar has moved his practice to a new office, which is great for me because it's closer than the old office was.  Instead of driving about fifteen to twenty minutes to get to the doctor (depending on traffic), now I drive about ten minutes and there we are.  Plus the office is bigger and they have an aquarium in the waiting room.  Talk about making 2.0's day.  :)  The only things I didn't like about the new office was the waiting time to see the doctor doubled.  Since he now has a larger practice, he's seeing more kids and that means I have to wait with my little one.  Plus, a new nurse practitioner was added to the practice and the office staff is pushing for all the patients to make appointments with her instead of the actual doctor.  I don't mind that, but I didn't like being pushed into it.  Overall, I still love our doctor, his nurse practitioners, and staff.

2.0 has lost about half a pound (he's 23 lb 10 oz) and he's almost 32 inches tall.  That means he's in the 45 percentile for weight (where he's been his entire life) and the 70th percentile for his height.  He's tall and skinny. :)  He's meeting his developmental milestones and in some cases, he's exceeding them.  For example, he should be stacking towers of two blocks.  2.0 stacks five.  He also shows more advanced coordination and balance compared to other kids his age.  But his speech is still a little behind (he's a boy, that's normal for boys) and he doesn't use a spoon or fork as well as he should.  Neither one of these bothered Dr. Omar, he said 2.0 is doing wonderful.

We also discussed 2.0's recent diagnosis of asthma.  Tomorrow I'm picking up a medication to help prevent the asthma symptoms and keep 2.0 healthy.  We don't want any further lung damage from steroids.  Dr. Omar and I also determined that 2.0's asthma is triggered by seasonal allergies and weather changes.  What he's allergic to is still an unknown.  We don't think it has anything to do with the dog, but it's possible that he's allergic to mold or pollen or God knows what.  Nate and I both have some seasonal allergy problems.  The really good news is that 2.0 will probably grow out of it.

Then it was time for the shots.  I'm very pro-vaccine.  Without vaccines, we'd still have polio and smallpox.  Vaccines keep kids healthy by preventing deadly disease.  Plus, there are parents out there that don't vaccinate their kids and those kids carry all sorts of things around that I'd rather have my child vaccinated against.  Today 2.0 received the MMR, Hib, and Varicella vaccines.

I wasn't sure about the varicella vaccine just because I had the chicken pox and I was just fine.  I had a pretty severe case of the chicken pox too, and right after serious abdominal surgery (I had an appendectomy when I was five before they did the whole thing with a scope).  When the nurses and the doctor mentioned shingles to me though, we got the shot.  Shingles are awful and I wouldn't want 2.0 to get them later on in life because his mother thought chicken pox were okay.

So far, 2.0 took the vaccines well.  He normally does.  He was cranky (very cranky) today, tired, and achy.  But he's doing great now.  We'll see what happens with this asthma medication and hopefully, we won't see the doctor again until September.