One-year Wellness Check

One-year stats:  

24 lbs, 3 oz. (86 percentile)

32 inches (99 percentile)

teeth count: 10

clothes size: 18 months

shoe size: 6

walking: absolutely

words: mama, dada, and lots of babbles

Rudy had his one-year wellness check last week.  For the most part, all things are great and he is perfectly healthy.  He is developmentally right on track, if not ahead of the track.  

Unfortunately, Rudy has been having some constipation issues again.  So frustrating!  After talking to the doctor and nurses, they think it may have to do with the introduction of milk (even though he was normal for several days with the milk...hence, my frustration).  Last Tuesday was his first "bad" constipation poop and since then, we have not given him any dairy besides his milk (and loaded him up on prune juice, water, warm sitz baths).  As of Thursday evening (when I spoke to the nurse because it had been several days of tears with every dirty diaper...poor baby), we have had to cut out all dairy completely, even milk, until he gets "regular" again.  Then we will slowly work it back into his diet and see how it goes.  Good, then great.  If the same thing happens, he will get tested to see if it is an intolerance or an allergy and where to go from there.  (Please be good)  When I met with the doctor on Friday I asked lots of questions.  It seemed so odd to me to be able to cut out milk completely, considering that has been his "main source of nutrition and calories" up until this point.  He explained that at this point, the milk is more or less just for calcium and another possibility is that he just doesn't tolerate milk very well but other forms of dairy may be fine and he can get his calcium from that.  Or, the doctor pointed out, there are several juices that are calcium fortified that will fill his needs.  

And the other not so fun lecture I got was how he needs to be off of bottles.  

Great...no milk and no bottles.  I wondered if the doctor wanted to come over and try and get him to go to sleep without either of those two things.  

After talking it all over with John and explaining it all very wordy along with all my questions and doctor's answers, John says, "so basically we need to not treat him like a baby anymore."  And that's exactly it, simply put.

So we have spent a weekend without milk and without bottles and guess what?  He's alive and happy as ever.  It was awful at first but every nap time and bedtime has gotten easier and easier and tonight was a breeze.  Rudy is a good baby.  I mean toddler.  It is definitely not as easy getting him to drink as much liquid as when he would take it from the bottles, but we are just sure to always have a sippy cup handy.  

Unfortunately, he still isn't back to "regular" yet.  Fingers-crossed he gets all worked out soon.  I'm sure he is missing his favorite macaroni and cheese!  

Another new habit to start -- teeth brushing.  (Maybe this all wouldn't have come to such a shock or seem like information overload had I been keeping up with my books!)  So far, so good.  Rudy actually likes brushing his teeth and is pretty good at doing it himself, too.  Now whenever we go into the bathroom he reaches up for his toothbrush.  He likes doing whatever we do.   

The doctor did help put my mind at ease with Rudy's latest eating habits (or lack of vegetables).  He was in no way concerned and said this is very common at his age (and for mother's of children this age to be worried).  He said to just continue offering them as much as possible and one day he will go for them and ditch something that was a good go-to for me.  As long as we continue to work on variety and keep vegetables available, it will all work out.  Phew!

And Rudy was, of course, hamming it up at the doctor's office.  He was cheesing big time for the doctor and when the nurses came in to give him his shots, he was dancing.  Everyone kept commenting on a) how big he is and b) how happy he is. 

All things considered, we are incredibly blessed to have such a happy, healthy baby (whoops, toddler)!