Healthy lil toddler - doc appt.

We had Ava's 18 month check-up yesterday. She's nearly 19 months now, but hey, at least I got her there. ;)

The appointment went marvelously. Ava is healthy and doing very well. She's at or above all the developmental milestones for her age. The normal number of words for a child her age to have is 3 to 50 and she has at least 75 (and I keep thinking of more words I didn't yet count). The doctor was quite impressed that she's been doing somersaults on her own for the past three months. Yep, she's our little monkey.

Ava was very cooperative during the exam. She stood still while the doc listened to her heart and lungs. She opened her mouth to let her look at her throat. She even showed off her teeth when asked. And while the doc and I talked, Ava played peek-a-boo with her by hiding behind the chair and climbed up and down the little step to get on the exam table, saying "wheee!", assisted by the doc's hand. :)

Her weight was 29 lbs., 6 oz., (95th percentile) and her height was 32 1/2 inches (75th percentile), though I think she's at least an inch taller than that. Her knees were bent when the nurse measured her. (Actually, I just looked up her 15 month stats and she was supposedly at 32 inches then, so I definitely think those measurements are a bit subjective.)

I didn't go armed with a list of questions this time because I just didn't have any concerns. It's kind of nice when that happens. ;)

We did talk a bit about the switch to vegetarianism. I said we are eating vegetarian now and she said, "Does she like fish?" And I said "Yes, she does, but we aren't eating fish anymore." (Why do people think fish aren't animals?) I guess that was her lead in to talk about how fish is important for brain development. (Anybody got anything she could eat instead for her brain? Avocados?) She asked about dairy and eggs and I said we were still going to have dairy and eggs, but I wasn't planning on giving her cow's milk anymore. So she asked if I was using soy milk or what? I said soy and rice milk. She went on to say that rice milk is pure sugar to kids at this age and not to give it to her. Hmmm. I got home and compared the boxes of soy milk and rice milk. Soy milk has 7 grams of sugar and rice milk has 10 grams. Rice milk is fortified with B12 and soy milk isn't. I dunno. She drinks so very little soy or rice milk each day anyway (she's still nursing), I'm not sure I should be concerned. I'll do some more research.

My approach with doctors has always been that I respect and listen to what they have to say. But I do that with the knowledge that they are only human and can't possibly know everything, and then I go home, do my own research and make decisions that I feel are right for us. So that's what I'll do.

We also started her on her Polio vax. (We're delaying and selectively vaxing and have only done 3 shots of the DTaP so far.) I feel good about the way we're doing her vaxes. It took me a long time to decide we would even do any, but I'm glad we went the route that we did.

I'm thankful to have a happy, healthy lil toddler. :)