Once a baby passes the one year mark, the monthly visits to the pediatrician dwindle down to less frequent visits, to about every 3-6 months. At each of the visits, the doctor always asks us how Baby is doing in terms of milestones, like if he's sitting up by himself, crawling, babbling, or whatever it is babies do when they're supposed to. And we can always say, very proudly, "Of course he does, silly doctor!"
At the 15 month check up, the doctor finally stumped us. The first question was, "Does he speak more than two words?" He can say "ma ma" and "ba ba" (which means "Daddy"), but not really anything else. So two out of three isn't bad, right?And if he doesn't know the difference in meaning between those two words that sound coincidentally similar, does it count? OK, ask us another question, because we're sure he's excelled to a mutant degree in some other area of development... "Can he identify his body parts?" And we confidently replied, "Uh... Silly doctor... um... no." How were we supposed to know that we were supposed to teach him to identify his body parts? We've been teaching him different foods and drinks, toys and books, but not body parts! He's a Baby, not a doctor! He's not pre-med. Nobody told us we needed to teach him body parts now!
As a result, we have now placed him on a strict educational regimen to learn his anatomy. I've documented our progress so far...
Where's your head?
Where's your teeth?
Where's your derrière?
Where's your... pants??
OK, we have a few more months to make some progress...
