18 Months

Hunter is 18 months today.  I just still can't believe we have a "baby" who is a year and a half.  I know I say this every time, but he just amazes me.  I love watching him learn new things and problem solve.  He has such a silly personality and he loves to make us and himself laugh.  If he thinks something is the slightest bit funny, he does this fake, over the top laugh and looks at us to make sure we laugh too.

He has definitely taken an interest in the TV.  We limit the amount he watches, but sometimes Mommy just needs to cook some dinner and it holds his attention (for 10-15 minutes).  He likes Peep, Dinosaur Train, Elmo, Baby Signing Time, and Kipper.  If they laugh, he laughs; if one of the characters gets hurt, he gets sad.  He is getting good at reading facial expressions.

Hunter has been playing with toys appropriately and loves all his little animals and cars.  Cars are probably his favorite toy and then little pull along toys.  Oh, and any toy that he can turn on and make lots of noise. Ha.  He has been playing a lot with his puzzles.  He will take a given piece and put it in different slots saying, "No.  No.  No.  Yeah!"  It's cute.

He built that tower of blocks (to the left of him) all by himself.

At The Little Gym, he has been loving the balance beam and climbing on everything.  He loves the warm up (walking, running, jumping, rolling, etc.) and the group activity (using some sort of manipulative).  He loves his "Ruh" (Miss Sarah) and likes to be the first one in the gym.  We were going to move him up to the Beast class in January, but I think we will stay in Birds because we have made a lot of great friends in there.  No need to rush, we will move up in the summer.

He loves his friends and we talk about them.  He likes to name them in the car when we are driving home from Mrs. Cathy's house.  He is labeling everything and we've really been working on "What's that?" when he doesn't know something.  His receptive language is great and he loves using sign language.

We went for his 18 month check-up today.  I had to fill out a form asking me all these yes/no questions regarding his behavior.  As I was reading it, I knew it was looking for signs of Autism.  It is safe to say that, for now, Hunter is not showing any signs.  Maybe after those 2 year shots... only kidding, I know vaccines do not cause Autism.

He is 26 pounds, 2 ounces and 33.15 inches... a little over the 75th percentile for both.  I let my dad know that he is no longer "short and fat" haha.  I mentioned his legs again, this time not for the bowing, but because he is turning his right foot inward.  Our pediatrician watched him walked and agreed there is a need to see an orthopedist.  The referral was written for "in-toeing".  I requested a certain orthopedist, and he said that was fine, but typically people see the partner so-and-so.  I told him that was fine as long as it wasn't Dr. X... he said he caught my drift.  We go for that appointment in January.  Luckily, this doctor is in the same building as our pediatrician (it is a huge CHKD building) so we won't have to go to the main hospital in Norfolk.  Even if this doctor says he will grow out of it, I will feel better that we went and had it checked out.