Fifteen Month Checkup

Yesterday we took Delphine for her fifteen month checkup. Everything was generally fine, but she is not growing as fast as she probably should be. I don't know the exact numbers (Blake?) but I think she has gained less than a pound since her last checkup at a year, and at that checkup she hadn't gained enough, either. It could be that she's just growing in fits and starts, and this is a slow period, or it could be that she's really not getting enough of the right things to eat. (Or I suppose it could be something more sinister, but that's unlikely and not worth worrying about at this point.)

I find it hard to get her to eat -- she will have a few mouthfuls of something and then push it away, and she is fairly selective about what she eats. Today I tried Dr Sears's nibble tray method: I put Cheerios (multi-grain), raspberries, some potato, and frozen peas into the compartments of a tart tray (like a muffin tin, but shallower). She actually did eat a fair bit of this morning's selection, and (surprisingly) not too much of it got ground into the carpet.

She's been miserably sick lately, with some kind of non-respiratory virus which had her feverish and shaking and puking. (First puke!) She hardly ate at all for a few days. I'm glad we're still nursing because that was the only thing she would take -- I couldn't get her to drink milk or water, or eat anything. I may never wean her, it's so convenient. I think she's better now; she slept all night with no crying, and the viral rash has gone.

She started walking on Friday; just decided it was time, I guess. She's steady on her feet, because she's been practicing for so long. It's fun and a little thrilling to watch her walking around, as blasé as if she has been doing it for weeks.

She doesn't talk yet, at least not in English; sometimes it sounds like Cantonese, sometimes it sounds like German. For a week or so she was calling the cats "Meeaaooow", so it could be that her first word was in cat. Hmph.