No photos, just text

I haven't blogged a good update in quite a while, mainly pictures of our summer happenings. There are so many new things going on with Gavin that I want to document it somewhere, so bear with this post. No photos, just text.

Well, 18 months, crazy! Gavin's development is just blossoming! I'll start with speech: words are being refined, though still not fully understandable in all cases yet. He pretty much will attempt to repeat anything you say, at least one to two word statements. He is gaining great abilities with words that have three or more syllables. His favorite, most commonly said words include some of his historic favorites, but also some new words as well. All things vehicle are still his favorite (car, boat, motorcycle, truck, train). In the past week or so, we've heard repeated attempts at perfecting these words. Last weekend, during lunch, I must have heard the word motorcycle (sounds like "psy-cho") repeated 300 times at rapid rate, all the while avoiding the task at hand...eating. He calls his grandparents "mae mee" and "bapa" (Grandma and Grandpa) and his cousins (Luke, Lexi, and Ava) are all "coco". I'm not sure if he's maybe trying to say cousins? It's funny to watch him point at them and say "coco". Brad instantly thinks of CoCo in reference to Conan O'Brien and thinks it is quite funny.

Gavin knows and can point out many objects, body parts, etc. He can easily follow commands that are told to him (except "Gavin, we don't throw food. It stays on your plate."- hasn't quite gotten this yet).

Motor skills: this kid is everywhere! Spinning is great fun, dancing to music, attempting to jump, though he can't get airborne yet. Many times, he gets ahead of himself while running and does some tumbles. He's also learning to "ride" his bike, scooting along, but mainly enjoys pushing it around the drive way. The swimming pool and lake are great fun, though he is still cautious. Gavin is very into kissing right now. He even puckers his lips and scrunches his nose. Gavin has become more cautious on furniture. He used to run like a wild man, but has come to learn that he needs to sit down on the couches. And he is climbing less frequently (though still does occasionally) on the coffee table.

Gavin loves to read books. His favorite is The Best Mouse Cookie. There is a page where the mouse is baking cookies and listening to a radio that has little music notes coming out of it. For a couple of months when I would read it to him, I would sing a little on that page "lalalalaaaa". Now, he opens the book to read it by himself in his little chair (which is cute enough by itself) and will shake his head back and forth and sing "ahyayayayay". Very cute to see the learning. He picks up on things when you don't even think he is paying attention to the little things that you do. I love it!

Growth: challenging, I must say. This is the thing we most struggle with. While he is between the 50th-75th percentile for height, he fell off the growth chart for weight around 9-12 months. And hasn't gotten back on it. So, he's officially been tagged as "failure to thrive" which sounds like this awful condition that neglected kids with abusive parents have. So, we've had a couple of appointments with a pediatric endocrinologist, first concerned that he may have a hormone-related condition. Lab work and assessment is not pointing to growth hormone deficiency (he's growing height-wise appropriately) and no concern for thyroid conditions. We're continuing some work-up and trying to rule out Celiac disease (gluten intolerance). He has no symptoms of distress when he eats gluten, but many people with gluten intolerance are asymptomatic from what I've been reading. We'll see. I absolute dread that something could be wrong - I wish it on myself before my child. But I know that even if it is Celiac disease, it could certainly be worse. We are just so absolutely blessed to have an otherwise, perfectly normal and thriving child. We just continue to try to pump calorie-rich "super foods" into Gavin - eggs with heavy cream, whole milk yogurt, cheese, butter on virtually everything, peanut butter (just introduced last week), milk fortified with Carnation Instant Breakfast, etc. So, at his 18 month well-child appointment, he finally weighed in at 20 pounds. I'm open to any suggestions any of you moms out there have for packing on some extra pounds!

Well, that's my post. Finally some updates other than photos. We've been enjoying our summer but we're a little sad that it's winding down. I must say, though, I so look forward to fall, particularly after this extraordinarily hot summer! Hope you all have had a great summer as well!