18 month checkup

Tuesday was the boys' 18 month pediatrician visit. After hemming and hawing since their last visit about giving the boys the varicella vaccine for chicken pox, we decided to let them get vaccinated. So today we did shot #2 for Hepatitis A and shot #1 of varicella. Theo went first, watched the needles going in, and never so much as whimpered. What a tough guy. Beck handled the first shot okay, and looked up at me kind of confused. When the second shot hit him, he was looking right at me--and screamed. But besides the shots, everything else went pretty well. The boys cooperated well with the measuring and weighing and examining. Theo has his yucky old diaper rash which may or may not be related to yeast or thrush or an infection. He has sensitive skin and gets rashes so easily, it makes me so sad. But Grandma Joanie's theory is that maybe they have a sensitivity to blueberries, which sometimes compose 50% of their daily volume of food intake. So we're cutting down on the blueberries and seeing how things go. Theo's still in about the 10-15th percentile for height, a little higher for weight and head circumference. Beck's at about the 50th percentile for height and head circumference, and about the 25th for weight. My question for Dr. Morisseau was whether the boys are retarded because they don't talk very much. Thankfully, she said no. She said that kids normally have about 10 words at this age, which means 10 verbal noises that mean something to them. We realized that with animal noises and sounds they make that aren't quite articulated words but mean a particular thing in their world, they definitely have at least ten words each.