19 Months Old

It has been extremely difficult getting around to writing Noah's 19 month stats.  I just sent him off with Daddy for an hour, so instead of taking some time to relax or make dinner, I'm doing this. 

At 19 months, here is where Noah is at:

-I haven't weighed or measured Noah this month, but I assume he is just slightly heavier and taller than last month, when he was 27lbs and 35 inches.

-He is in size 4 diapers during the day and night.

-He wears size 2T and 3T clothing.  Most 2T clothing is too short, though.

-He wears size 6 shoes.

-He nurses on demand, 4-6 times a day.

-He exclusively feeds himself his solids, either with his hands or with a spoon and fork. If he is given a utensil, he will always use it.  He also drinks out of a regular cup quite well, although we try to use a sippy cup as often as he will let us since we run less risk of him purposefully pouring out his water.

-He has 16 full teeth. The only ones left are his 2 year molars.

-He broke his leg on Saturday, September 24, 2011.  The diagnosis wasn't confirmed until the following Thursday.  He is doing a lot better now, but he is still limping.

-As of his 19 month birthday, he had been on a nap strike for 15 days, where he absolutely refused to nap unless he was actively nursing or in the car.  I think we might have beaten that now, though.  Update on that separately.  Soon, hopefully.

-Half of this month he was been sleeping 11 to 11.5 hours at night, getting up to nurse twice.  I went along with this because it started happening right after he broke his leg.  But when naps went to crap and Noah woke up wanting to nurse already at 11:30pm, I buckled down.  Since then he has been sleeping straight through the night 2/3 of the time and getting up to nurse sometime after 5am 1/3 of the time (one nurse a night is normal for him and I don't mind it).

-Bedtime is after 8:30pm most nights, and we've been sleeping in until about 8am or later every morning.

-He no longer signs to nurse, eat, or for water.  He's strictly verbal.

-At 15 months Noah was saying 18 words. At 16 months he was saying 42 words. At 17 months he was saying 79 words. At 18 months he was saying 137 words.  

-At 19 months Noah is saying way over 300 words.  However, I am not very good at writing them all down, and I need to find a way to automatically alphabetize them on the computer because it's really hard to go through the list to see if a new word is really a new word or not.  As a result, I have only recorded 281 words.

His old words that he's still saying are: Mama, Dada, uh oh, more, this, that, cat, night night, hot, up, yes, woof woof ("what does a dog say?"), baa ("what does a sheep/goat say?"), moo ("what does a cow say?"), car, ball, shoes, cracker, Noah, water, orange, clock, blech, hi, done, dirt, Bert, puff, swish, fluff, book, buzz, Papa, Nana, boo, fish, phone, again, home, sunglasses, Gramper, sit, stretch, glasses, food, laptop, love, hair, quack, bye, tshirt, shirt, aunt, poop, slide, cheese, Colton, danger, banana, feet, please, clock, cold, toes, ooo-ooo-ahh-ahh (monkey sound), bad, burger, boo-boo (as in, an owie), nurse, block, fly, stuck, chalk, out, fit, hat, bye-bye, and shit (yeah, I'm not proud of that), pool, eyes, nose, rice, pour, no, apple, bath, heck, help, eat, T.V., pup, corn, cook, moon, sun, on, off, mouse, brush, ice, neigh, push, yay, peach, buddy, you, hi, mess, flip, hose, toast, home, see you, pieces, pear, foot, me, tape, open, meat, ok, out, street, outside, keys, bits, pee, flies, away, whoa, cheerios, cut, gas, wet, hey, bless.

-Some of his new words are: plate, baby, kick, acorn, grass, light, dark, medicine, horse, cake, after, bar, house, two, three, go, doctor, windy, lid, hide, Elmo, get, it, fix, button, thank, beep, one, cookie, high, chair, highchair, whack, walk, tower, cute, breakfast, bawk (chicken), back, moose, lion, tiger, dinner, pocket, Ernie, draw, wall, welcome, Granny, Matt, Lynsey, aunt, Giliane, Nick, Hilary, cuddle, boat, pen, puck, ready, picture, coming, dude, cool, clothes, soother, green, purple, blue, both, you, I, love, fries, toys, red, playdoh, stick, hockey, hit, ribbit, frog (which comes out as f#ck), colour, found, plug, pizza, coffee, cricket, broke, ring, hug, rice, watch, arm, leg, ear, closet, open, dukie (dutch slang for washcloth), chicken, Abby, sweep, music, Emmie, Lexie, other, room, welcome, rain, clap, table, yellow, crayon, crib, music, lotion, cube, self, ice cube, new, giraffe, bite, blanky, dance, meow, cow, dog, rabbit, tomato, tree, bathroom, cup, window, honk, pretty, grape, fork, spoon, knife, goose, bang, Scout, peek-a-boo.

-In case you didn't read through that long list (I don't blame you), Noah says frog, but it comes out as "f#ck." Quite perfectly pronounced, too.  It has embarrassed me several times.

-He is putting many two word phrases together.  For example: thank you, bless you, get it, get you, got you, hang on, etc.

-He knows that poop and pee go in the toilet, and he shows interest when we go to the bathroom, but I haven't gotten him a potty or even started to bother training him.  I am in no hurry.

-His verbal comprehension continues to be amazing. He understands everything we say to him. We can even reason with him.

-He still wants gets into everything, but he is continuing to obey the word "no" more consistently.

-Currently, his favourite "toys" are our Dyson vacuum cleaner, my hair dryer, any cleaning implement, or anything electronic that isn't meant to be played with.

-He just jumped for the first time, actually getting air.  We weren't trying to teach him, he just suddenly decided to stand there on two feet and figure out how to jump up and land again.  And he did it.

-He loves to colour with us.  We colour with paper and crayons, or on his big AquaDoodle mat.  I love AquaDoodle.

-He knows most of the main colours: green, orange, blue, red, yellow, purple, and black.  He spends most of his time concentrating on green and orange, though.  Especially orange.

-He'll count "one, two, three..." but most of the time when he's counting he says "Two, two, two, two..." as he points to different objects.  This slays me.  It's hilarious.

-He loves to play with playdoh.  I bought it when he broke his leg and wasn't supposed to walk.  I bought a Sesame Street set of shapes and cutters and things, so when he wants to play with playdoh he'll usually say "Elmo!  Cut!"  

-He L.O.V.E.S. Sesame Street.  He either asks to watch "Street" or "Elmo".  He absolutely adores Elmo, and his second favourite character would probably be Abby Cadabby.  He even knows that if I spell "E-L-M-O" that spells Elmo.  I tried spelling it so he wouldn't hear the word, but he figured it out pretty quickly.

-This is the very first month he has shown an interest in loving stuffed animals.  Before now he was only attached to "Pup," his lovey.  And that was only after having him in his crib for months and months.  This month he fell in love with a puppy at Build-A-Bear, so we made one for him.  He adores that puppy.  He hugs him and kisses him and cuddles with him.  We call him "Scout," which Noah pronounces something like "Suck."

-Time outs are still extremely successful around here. They've been so successful, we don't need to use them that often anymore.

-No illnesses for Noah this month. The count is at 13.

-He is getting much less shy, but he still has separation anxiety from me.

-He is such a smart, sweet, gentle little boy who just loves other kids and babies.  He shares, he's nice, he's empathetic... I'm so proud of him!

Day 7 of Broken Leg

Noah is definitely no better.  I'm feeling defeated.  His limp is worse again today.  There is no way it will be gone by Monday, like the surgeon predicted.   He has to walk so slow, and he is falling a lot.  He looks like a brand new walker, instead of a kid who's been walking for 7-8 months.  He is also whimpering, seemingly about his leg, a lot more often than he has been since the accident.  I wonder if he will end up with a splint.

I was pretty successful at cutting down his walking time today.  He probably walked only about 20% of how much he usually walks.  I just can't do anything but be right beside him.  He is happy to sit on the floor and play with me for hours at a time.  But I can't be doing anything but paying direct attention to him.  That's great for us, but less than stellar for the state of my house (not that that matters in this situation).

Today I bought Noah a bunch of new toys that I am hoping will be interesting enough to hold his attention and keep him sitting for as long as his Clifford nesting blocks did today.  I got it all half off, but was anticipating the bill to be much higher than it was.  I was excited!

And I wonder how Noah will sleep tonight.  Last night was so crummy.  He was up for hours in the middle of the night, wanting me with him.  He never ever does this, so it was very out of character.  Since the accident he has only had 2 good nights, both of which he was on Tylenol for.  Most of the bad nights I didn't give him any medication.  However, last night I gave him both Tylenol before bed and ibuprofen at 3am, and it didn't make any difference to his sleep.  

I just don't feel comfortable not attending to him right now.  For all I know he's hurt his leg even worse by getting it caught in the crib, or he has caught some bug from spending the entire day in the ER and has thrown up all over himself or something.  I can't ignore the whimpers, whines, and cries right now.

Finally, A Diagnosis

After 2 ER visits, 2 misdiagnoses, and an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon, we have our verdict:

Noah's fibula is broken.

He has what's called a greenstick fracture, or a plastic deformation.  Basically, because his bones are still so flexible, the fibula got bent by the weight of Justin falling on it, and it got fractured in the process.  If he was older, the fracture probably would have been a lot worse.

Greenstick fractures are stable, so the orthopedic surgeon didn't want to cast it or splint it because it would just be a pain in the butt for Noah.  I am fine with that.  But he also said that we should not allow him to walk.

Ummm... have you ever had an 18 month old??  I told him I would do my best, put him in his high chair as much as possible and cuddle with him on my bed watching as much Sesame Street as he would tolerate, but nothing would stop this kid from walking.  Even a broken leg.

We go to see the ortho again on Monday, and then again 2 weeks after that.  He thinks Noah's limp will be a lot better by Monday, hardly noticeable.  Considering how bad it is right now, I have a really hard time believing that.  But we'll see.

So the details of my day are as follows:

We got to the ER in the late morning.  We waited for hours before being called back to a bed.  Noah cried whenever someone touched him.  Not necessarily because it hurt, but because he hates when strangers touch him.  Then we got into x-ray.  X-ray was... oh my goodness.  Torture.  I had to hold down his upper body while a tech held his leg still.  He was screaming as hard as he could and begging to nurse.  He was only in a onesie at this point, but after we were done he was bright red and extremely sweaty.

The ER doctor got the images right away and told us his leg looked fine.  I told him I was still sure it was broken, and that from everything I read, sometimes the break doesn't show up on the x-rays or it can be hard to spot.  He said he's not a radiologist, but he's seen a lot of x-rays and it looked normal to him.  He told me it was probably just a soft tissue injury, like the last ER doctor said.  He said he'd call if the radiology report said anything different.  We were standing at the exit and had basically been dismissed, and I said "Well, his limp just keeps getting worse, which is not consistent with a soft tissue injury.  So what am I supposed to do?    How long do I let this limp go on for until I bring him in again?  And then where do I go?"

The doctor looked perplexed, because he seemed to realize that the whole thing didn't make sense.  So he called the orthopedic surgeon who was on call and talked to him, and the ortho wanted to see me at 4pm today.

We left to bring Noah home to my parent's house for a nap.  Both my mom and I agreed that his fibula did not look normal in the x-ray, even if the doctor thought it did.  It had a curved spot, and I saw some lines that I didn't think belonged there (I saw several x-rays on toddler legs during the past few days while trying to figure out what Noah had, so I was fairly familiar with how they should look, although I wouldn't claim to be an expert).  I was still convinced it was broken.

Noah had a good nap, over an hour.  He woke up at 3:50, and we rushed to the ER again to see the ortho.  We needn't have rushed.  We didn't get to see him until 5:15.  That's when he told us that Noah's leg is, in fact, broken.

And that is when I was vindicated.  I thought his fibula was broken (yes, specifically his fibula, not his tibia), and I told all the doctors and nurses this, so they wouldn't need to investigate all sorts of unnecessary stuff (which they didn't, really, to their credit).  And I could tell they were all like "Oh yeah, okay Mom, Over Reactor."  I tried to explain to them that, if anything, I'd be considered an under reactor, and the fact that I brought my kid to the ER for the second time in a week, and that I am subjecting him to all these scenarios that are going to make him scream his head off, means I know something is wrong.  It was not a stupid soft tissue injury.

And it wasn't.  It was a fracture.

Anyway, Noah was really well behaved the whole day.  He only cried when people were touching him.  Other than that he didn't even complain or whine.  He was the model child.  

-He played with the wheelchairs.  

-He kept walking over to a sick toddler who was crying and saying "Baby!  Baby!  Poor baby."  

-He went over to a 1 month old baby who had a cold and kept saying "Baby!"  

-After that he kept saying "Baby!  Shhhh!"  with his finger in front of his mouth, like we should be quiet for the little baby.  

-He kept running to the automatic doors (which responded to his small stature) trying to escape.  When he finally understood that no matter how many times he tried it, we would always stop him, he started running over to the doors, stopping when they opened, and saying "Uh oh!!!"

-He made fast friends with a couple of kids who came in with their mom, and they were colouring and playing together.

He was so cute:)