Sadie vs The Milestones

When it comes to babies, milestone can rule a parents life, if you let them. I thankfully have never been too worried about milestones or percentiles or anything like that. Heck, half the time I would leave the doctors office after a check-up having no clue if Sadie was in the 25 or 75 percentile. I would make mental notes in my head when I would get the weekly baby emails saying "in the next few weeks baby might start doing so-and-so" so that I could kind of be on the look out for clues that Sadie was getting there and to help encourage her along the way. But I've never compared my child to another and wondered "well, why isn't Sadie doing that yet?" or "why isn't little Johnny doing that yet? Sadie was doing that weeks ago?"

I don't have an exact date for when Sadie smiled for the first time, or laughed, or rolled over, or sat up on her own. I'm sure I mentioned in my monthly recaps when she conquered one of those tasks, but I surely don't have a list on my fridge that I check off as we go.

I bet you're wondering where the heck I am going with this?

Here's the thing... Sadie isn't walking or talking yet. Now, before anyone starts thinking I have a mute baby lump that just sits on the floor, let me state that Sadie is 100% happy, mobile and can babble and screech with the best of them.

Let's talking about the walking first. When Sadie started crawling shortly after 6 months, I had a nagging feeling that she was going to be a late walker. From talking to people, reading on birth boards, etc, I started to see a a trend of early crawlers = late walkers and late crawlers = skip right into walking. Over the next 6 months Sadie becomes an expert crawler and furniture cruiser, she even started pushing the occasional laundry basket or chair around the house. But when Robert or I would try and hold her hands and walk she would take a few steps and then collapse to her knees and be on her merry-crawling-way.

Shortly after her first birthday she moved up to the next class at daycare. Those first few days were rough for her to say the least. Every single other kid her in class was walking, heck some were even running, all over Sadie. When I picked her up the second day they told me anytime they would sit her on the ground she would start crying because all the other kids would tower over her and if she started crawling one of her little hands would inevitably get tripped over. As terrible as this sounds, I was hoping this would be the little jump start she would need to get walking. And it was. Kind of. She started walking on her knees. She had done this a few times before, but nothing really consistent. Now, walking on her knees is her main mode of transportation. Crawling is still faster for her, so if there is something she wants she will still drop to all fours and gun it. I know the ladies at daycare walk with her all day and Robert and I walk with her all the time at home, we've gotten it down to where she holds on to one finger and she could walk for hours it seems. So, there is nothing wrong with her legs or anything like that, she can walk, she just needs some assistance.

Now, I am sure you're thinking, ok, big deal, my niece didn't walk until she was 16 months old. Sure, that might be the case, but I would hazard to guess your niece could talk a little or at least say "mama", "dada", "ball" etc. Again, from all my reading, googling and talking to it seems that kids tend to focus on either their fine motor skills (talking) or gross motor skills (walking). Remember from above, Sadie isn't doing either of those.

Well, shit.

Sadie has about 3 "sounds like words" she'll sometimes, every once in a while say, "dadadadadadada", "bababa" and "puh". I like to tell Robert she's asking for him whenever she goes on a "dadadada" kick, but that's generally because I'll be changing a nasty diaper when she starts it! Neither one of us really think she has made the connection between Robert and dada. "Bababa" is only when she gets really mad that I took her cup away, baba = cup = bottle, I'll give her this one. "Puh" is sometimes for puppy, sometimes while we're standing at the back door calling for the dogs to come in she'll say "puh puh" very softly. I always ask her "where are the puppies, Sadie?" Again, I'll give her "puh". "Mama"? No way, hasn't said it. I long for the say to hear her sweet little voice say "mama" it will be the best day ever, and we'll get there. At the same time Sadie is a babbler, she will sit there and have little conversations with herself and she has recently started waving her finger around directing Robert and I to do who knows what, but it's hilarious when we just sit there and she gets mad and loud!

The speech thing, I feel like might be a lot of my fault. I am a pretty quite person, so when Sadie was smaller and all the books were saying to talk though everything you are doing, I honestly felt kind of stupid doing it. I know I tried and I know I did talk to her a lot more than I normally would, so I try not to blame myself. But it's hard, I think as a mom you tend to take on a lot of self-imposed blame. At Sadie's last doctors appointment our doctor specifically said to repeat everything thing three time, "This is your cup. Do you want your cup? Here is your cup." and so on, so Robert and I have both been working on that a lot more. So, far I haven't seen much improvement but it hasn't been that long and I am sure her little brain wheels are turning as fast as they can!

Let me connect this post and my previous post together:

congestion = fluid in the ears = balance issues = walking independently issues

congestion = fluid in the ears = hearing issues = speech delays

Apparently all that congestion might be having more on an effect on Sadie than just making her a snot faucet.

At Sadie's last doctors appointment I borough all these issues up and asked if it could all tie back to the congestion and she agreed that there was a very strong possibility it could. We are in a wait and see mode now, to see if the new medicine kicks in and knocks the congestion out, or if we will be looking at tubes. Whatever happens, hopefully once the congestion is gone these will be two milestones I can quickly check off my list, you know the one I don't have on my fridge!

I did ask my doctor at what point do we start to worry about the not walking and not talking and she told me we would reassess everything at 18 months and if there was no progress then we would talk about a pedi-physical therapist, if she tried to send Sadie to one now, we would be laughed at. She didn't really say anything specific about the speech, so I assume 18 months too.

Y'all, 18 months is 4 months away. That's a long time! For now we are going to just keep trucking along, making Sadie walk as much as possible, talking more and naming everything more. And do our damn best to get this allergy issue under control. Allergies, I can handle all the snot you spew at me, but when you start messing with the way my baby develops that's when I get mean and will do whatever I can to get rid of the congestion you bring along with you.

(Next week I should have a post about one of the other things we are trying to get rid of the fluid and congestion while waiting to see if the new medicine kicks in!)