March 26, 2005
13 Month Photos
Finally some photos! My appologies, I forgot to make them smaller as I was uploading them and it's too much work to go back and do it again.
Robbie with his favorite toy (our phone)
Just lounging around:
Robbie fell asleep while watching tv:
Robbie in his toy bucket:
Robbie at an Easter Egg hunt:
Robbie at the top of his slide:
Robbie with his new slide:
Climbing the slide:
Robbie outside:
What a cutie!
13 month Update
Robbie is almost 13.5 months! He's not walking yet, but he has a walker that he pushes and walks all over the house with. If he can't find his walker, he tries to do the same with other things like chairs or his toys, but since they don't have wheels, he gets stuck and gets frustrated. He just loves that walker! He especially likes to try and run over us or the dogs with it and laughs as we run out of his way.
He still loves to look at books. With most books he has a favorite page and wants to just find that page and look at it. He gets his face up close pushing into the page and makes happy sounds like "ah, ah".
He also loves to climb on top of things. We recently got him a slide with climbing tower. It's made for toddlers and is made out of plastic. As soon as the weather gets better outside we'll put it there, but for now it's in the living room. He likes to climb up the slide and then slide down, feet first.
He's not very interested in developing his fine motor skills, but he is showing a little bit of improvement. He's good at putting rings on a cone, just not in any particular order (you're supposed to do them according to size). He's also starting to try put shapes in a shape sorting box, but usually just opens the lid and puts them in directly.
He's very vocal, but no language-like sounds yet. I also don't see any sign of understanding any words. It's possible that while he had the ear infections, his hearing was affected. We should start seeing some improvements now.
Ear Tubes Surgery
Robbie has been sick with ear infections a lot since January. A few weeks ago our pediatrician refered us to an ENT (ear nose throat doctor). The ENT recommended putting ear tubes in his ears. It's a very common, quick surgery (15 minutes). The ear tubes help liquids drain out of the ears, preventing infections. Robbie had the surgery yesterday and it was successfull.
We had to be at the surgical center (Bailey Square) at 6 am. They schedule the children's surgeries by age with the youngest children going first. Robbie was #2 on the list (the 2nd youngest that day). They do this because you aren't allowed to eat or drink anything after midnight before the surgery and the younger the child is the more difficult it is for them not to eat so they do them earlier. We spent about an hour filling out paperwork and talking to the nurse, anesthesiologist and doctor about what was going to happen. Then, we had to put Robbie in some funny looking hospital robe that was way too big and a nurse took him away (screaming his head off). He was gone for about 40 minutes.
They put him under anesthesia, the doctor spent about 15 minutes doing the surgery. He made a small cut in each ear and put a tube in. He put a somewhat larger tube in the right ear because that one seemed to be infected more in the past. Then, the nurses took him, woke him up and wheeled his hospital bed over to us. We were waiting for him in a small private waiting room that had some chairs and a tv. He was very upset when we saw him. The nurse said most children wake up very upset, even angry from the anasthesia.
We had to stay another half hour to make sure he was ok. We could give him some milk or juice to drink to see if he could keep it down. He drank a bottle, but was still very upset. At about 9 am (3 hours after we arrived), they released us. Robbie calmed down as soon as we got to the car and fell asleep once we started driving. At home he started playing and was just fine all day, though he did take an extra long nap in the afternoon. Today (the day after) he's acting fine.
The ear tubes should fall out on their own in 9-12 months as the ear grows. In the meantime we have to be carefull that he doesn't get his ears wet. We have to put some cotton balls in his ears whenever he has a bath or is in the swimming pool.
Hopefully this will help him stay healthy.