18th Month Visit to the Doc

Ethan turned 18 months (1.5 years old) last Tuesday (July 31st). And just how did we commemorate this occasion?

We took him for a visit to Dr Jessica’s.

Ethan was due for his JE jab and we had planned to share the dosage with Charlotte because the jab will only need half a vial of the vaccine. Unfortunately, even though both Ethan and Charlotte were there at the hospital, Charlotte was not feeling well, so Dr Jessica advised her against taking the jab. At first we wanted to go ahead with the JE for Ethan, but then Dr Jessica said we could take the Hib, Polio and DTaP jab instead, which was exactly what we did. This was the first booster dose. Ethan had his Polio vaccine via OPV, i.e. orally, which contains a live weakened strain of the virus and is supposedly more effective compared to the IPV method which contains the dead or inactive strain of the virus. As usual, as a precautionary measure, Ethan was given a dose of PCM, which he angrily protested to. When Dr Jessica finished giving him his jab, Ethan looked really angry, and didn’t even want to wave goodbye to the good doctor. When he came into her room, he was delighted with the array of wooden blocks and toys he could play with, but immediately after the jab, when we tried to pacify him with a wooden block, he angrily threw the block on the floor! What a temper our boy had!

Dr Jessica did comment that he was not gaining enough weight though. He now weighs in at 9.8kg, and gained only 300g from the previous visit when he was 14 months old. The doctor said he should have gained double that amount by this time. She attributes this to probably Ethan being a lot more active than normal, and she gave us the green light to feed him more.

Another concern was that he is still not able to communicate in actual words with us. According to Dr Jessica, Ethan ought to have known about 30-50 words by now, and although he is able to motion to us when he wants to go out (holds our hand, motions to us, runs to the door and puts his hand on the door), tell us what he wants (points to the raisin boxes when he wants to eat them), and say a few simple words like “Mommy” and “Deh-deh” and babble the rest of it, the reason he has a slight “language problem” could be because he is watching too much TV. TV is considered one-way communication, and the doc advised us to speak to him more (maybe each one speaks in one language only). Actually we are communicating with him, and I am trying to limit his TV intake to shows with two-way communication, like Baby Einstein DVDs, Little Einstein and The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Well, let’s pray his blabbering will result in actual words soon 🙂

We have another appointment in a month’s time. Let’s see what his progress is then.

Of course, the next day after the doc’s appointment, we went shopping at Queensbay Mall again 🙂 Here’s a look at our precious Ethan Boy: all of 1.5 years!