James 2 Yr Appointment!

I am still having a hard time believing that my baby is 2 years old! I took him for his 2 year appointment on Monday and he weighed in at a whopping 23.6 lbs! That puts him on the 5th percentile for weight but hey at least he is back on the curve. It has taken him until now to regain his original growth curve since his bouts with the stomach flu in February. Height wise he is growing like a weed; he has grown over 2 inches since May! He was 33.75 inches this week, which bumped him above the 25th percentile for height. Xander might have a run for his money because at this rate James is going to be taller.

Overall he is very healthy. He has continued to have a lot of issues with sleeping- both falling asleep and staying asleep. Falling asleep is always a struggle and staying asleep come and goes in fits and spurts. For whatever reason he seems incapable of falling asleep by himself. He will scream and scream and scream for hours if you let him- until he is hoarse and loses his voice. If you lay down with him he is asleep in minutes most of the time. I think he has gotten so used to the comfort of nursing to sleep that he needs that physical contact to let himself relax enough to drift off. For now we have moved him to crib size mattress on the floor of his room and that seems to be working well b/c you can lay or sit with him and he goes down pretty easily. We may consider purchasing a full size bed for him to sleep in so we can lay down with him more comfortably. His issues with waking up in the middle of the night often seem to be related to his breathing. He usually seems like he is huffing and puffing when he wakes up. It's hard to say though if he is actually wheezing or if he is breathing hard from being upset and crying. He doesn't have any wheezing issues during the day and keeps up with Xander just fine so we're just keeping a watchful eye for now. With him sleeping on the mattress on the floor I was hoping if he woke up he would just come to our room but usually he ends up at the top of the stairs crying... Our bed usually gets pretty full around 3-4am because both Xander and James come and join us. That's why we needed the king size bed right!?!?!?!?

Speech wise he is doing awesome- almost too well in fact! He has learned to say "I want..." extremely well. He is using 4-5 word sentences and is quite understandable most of the time. His favorite works include "gone", "backpack", "I hide" and "mommy." He has his 6 months eval for speech next week and I am guessing that they are going to switch him to every other week. It looks like by the time he turns 3, barring any issues with his ears or his tubes falling out, he may no longer need speech therapy. His last hearing test put him in the normal range and he has a follow-up next month and I expect given his progress that will look normal as well. Here's hoping for a healthy winter with no ear infections!