3 Year Check-Up

It feels so crazy to be writing about Isla's 3yr check-up. My baby is 3 years old. How did this happened? I swear it feels like we just moved to Portland with a 10 month old who was not walking and although not speaking real words (except maybe mama and dada), was babbling up a storm. I guess time really does fly, because, here I am...28 and the mom of a THREE YEAR OLD. I still cannot believe it.

Anyway, today was Isla's 3 year check-up and for the most part it went really well. She's 32lbs (75th percentile) and some change and she's 38.5 inches tall (90th percentile). Both her weight and height are healthy for her age and neither of those things surprised me. Her blood pressure was good, too. It was the first time it's ever been taken at a well child visit and I was pretty impressed with her...she sat for it and didn't complain. Heck, she even took it off for the med assistant when it was okay too. So cute. She liked the pulse/ox machine the med assistant put on her finger, too. She kept it on until we were able to get a good reading - her pulse was 64 (normal, but, kinda low for a 3 year old - apparently, she was calm) and her oxygen level was 100 (great). Here are a few photos of her at her appointment...

Her little bum in those underwear is just precious <3

That face - ugh...just beautiful <3

Isla is a pretty easy child in terms of sleep (she sleeps through the night in her own bed), eating (she eats pretty well - loves her veggies and fruits), she's advanced for her age in vocabulary and language and most concepts. I didn't have much in the way of concerns. One of the things I wanted to discuss was her thumb sucking. She definitely has curvature in her bite due to her sucking, so, I just wanted to get some advice from our doc. Dr. M has a daughter that sucked her thumb, so, I knew she'd have good, sound advice. Since we just transitioned Isla from her crib into a big girl bed, she suggested that we wait a few months to let her settle into that before we really tackled the thumb sucking. When we decide to do it, she suggested that he wrap it up with gauze...kind of like you would if you had a thumb sprain. Only at night, since Isla only sucks her thumb at night. If that doesn't work we can try putting a tube sock over her jammies and wrapping it with masking tape at the top of the sock (the crease at her elbow). I'm hoping one of these suggestions will work, but, we've got a while until we proceed with trying either of them. In the meantime, I'll do some more research to see if there are any other products out there that might help as well. Another concern of mine was Isla's arguing. She argues A LOT. We weren't sure if it was because she's advanced in language, if we did something wrong with discipline, or what. Dr. M thinks it's probably mainly due to her advanced language and her being able to express herself more easily than other children her age. So, she recommended getting some parenting books on Love and Logic and other parenting philosophies and trying different things to see what works for Isla and for us. That's now on my "to-do list". 

I had to fill out a questionnaire for our appointment, prior to arriving. It had different categories...fine motor skills, gross motor skills, communication, etc. It asked if your child did things like throw a ball overhead, draw a line or a circle, jump on two feet, zip a zipper up and down...it asked a lot of these questions, some in all of the different categories. Isla excelled in communication, not surprisingly. But, unbeknownst to me, she appears to be lacking in the fine motor skills category. I'd worked with her before on trying to draw a line next to a line that I'd drawn, and she wasn't really interested and/or couldn't do it. I'd also tried to get her to draw a circle...she just drew squiggly lines. Isla's score was low enough that we were referred to an early intervention specialist for fine motor skills. Apparently they are going to do some tests with her to closer evaluate her fine motor skills and determine if it's something she needs dedicated attention for. Naturally, I was not happy about this and a little concerned. On our way home, I called Alberto to talk to him about it and he said he wasn't really concerned. He was joking, but he said that if it didn't resolve that she would be an awesome athlete. 

When Isla and I got home, I was consumed with thoughts of this referral. My daughter is so smart and so active, and, I was just having a hard time reconciling the need for this special testing. So, what did I do? I pulled out her dry erase markers and we played with her dry erase board. I drew a line and asked her to draw one...and she did. I tried a N to S line and a W to E line - she drew them both, just fine. Maybe I was wrong with what I put on the questionnaire? I tried to get her to draw a circle and she didn't fair so well with that. She got frustrated and didn't want to play with her dry erase board anymore. Guess we should wait for the call from the specialist and set up a time for her to go in and have the tests done? I'm trying not to be worried or to feel scared about it. But, this is not something I need right now. So, I'm crossing my fingers that when we do go in to have these tests done that they determine it's not a problem for Isla and she's doing just fine developmentally with her fine motor skills.