O-N-E

I love Peter's pediatrician in Durham. You know that you spend way too much time at large medical centers when one of the best parts of the appointment is that the office has a small parking lot located just steps from the doctor's office. Every other medical appointment I bring the kids to typically begins with driving onto the military base then searching for a parking spot for a good 10 or 15 minutes, unloading the kids, pulling out the stroller and loading it up, making the 10 minute trek into the hospital to find the right clinic or doctor. Olivia's other visits at Seattle Children's or Duke have been very similar, there's always such a process involved! To me there's something so luxurious about just driving up to a regular old doctor's office and walking in.

Peter's pediatrician had some minor experience with MPS so he's somewhat familiar with Sanfilippo Syndrome and he completed a rotation on the bone marrow transplant unit at the UNC hospital so he knows some about what we're going through with Olivia. Given some of Olivia's developmental issues I think that I'm a little more concerned with developmental milestones than your average parent and our pediatrician is happy to answer all of my questions! Peter is doing really well! He weighs 22lbs and is 17 cm long so he's right at the 50th percentile for both. The doctor isn't surprised because that Peter isn't walking independently yet since he still has quite a bit of his Babinski Reflex and he won't really be ready to walk independently until he grows out of that reflex. Peter is cruising and will walk when you hold onto his hands or when he's pushing something just not independently. Peter is also making a lot of verbal sounds but he's not talking yet. He's making consonant-vowel and consonant-vowel-consonant combinations but he isn't using any particular words to any particular objects. We'll wait 3 more months and then see if there's been any improvement before jumping into speech therapy. Peter's fine motor skills are a little ahead of schedule and he loves to play little games like peek-a-boo. He's also really funny when he wants to show you something. He just started this new thing where he'll grab your hand and then put the object into your hand. He's also started giving hugs and kisses which is the absolute sweetest thing ever!

Here's Peter working out over the weekend!