Alice had her 18 month well visit with the pediatrician last week. She weighs 27 lbs, 6 oz and is 33 inches tall - 90th percentile for both. The doctor said that she had some fluid in her ears and recommended that we get to the ENT post-haste to find out if the tubes are still in or what. Went to the ENT this morning and the tubes are indeed out. He pulled out quite a bit of wax and gunk out of her ears and gave me a script for antibiotics and drops to help dry up the fluid. I asked what the timeline was for putting tubes in again and he said that at her age, they do not like to wait very long because hearing is so important to speech development. We are going back for a check up in about 3 weeks so we will know more then on the direction we are heading.
In reference to the speech development, I was somewhat surprised when the pediatrician suggested speech therapy and said that Alice's speech development is at a 15-18 month old level. John and I are of the opinion that all kids are different and we are not concerned with Alice being below the curve. But, the session is free and they come to our home so we are going to go ahead with the evaluation. At the very least, it will help us learn some teaching tools. She will be evaluated on speech, cognitive skills, social skills, adaptive skills and motor skills.
Alice has been "talking" for quite a while but is only just starting to associate certain things with certain partial words. Dog is Da, Water is Wawa, Ball is Ba, and of course, Mama and Dada. She is really good at animal sounds and imitations. She knows that the cows we pass on the way to school every morning say Moo, she knows and can make elephant, tiger, bear and monkey sounds. She even puts her hand in her armpit when she makes the monkey sound. Alice also uses sign language quite a lot (more, all done, No, soft, baby).
Alice clearly 'gets it' - she is very responsive to things we ask her to do. ("Please bring that book to Mommy", "Let's go get your shoes", etc) If we show her a picture of an animal in a book she will go to her pile of stuffed animals and find that animal. She amazes us with that every day. She and I were reading a book with a bear in it last week, she got off my lap and pointed to her stuffed bear. I didn't even think to make the connection for her - she did it on her own!
So here I have just rationalized (to myself, perhaps) that there is nothing wrong with my baby girl. Hate that there is any doubt in my mind. I wonder if the removal of gunk today will make any short term difference with her speech.
Wacky Tacky Dress-up Day at school
Alice even sleeps with her books. (Not sure why this pic auto rotated.) 
Mommy hugs - love it!
Alice's Outdoor Palace
She takes the stairs like a pro
Loving the slide
"Whoa"
She wants to try EVERY swing, not just her baby swing.
and the trapeze!
