Diagnosis: Smart

I have always claimed that blogging is a bit of an egotistical pursuit - a sort of "I am so special the world should be able to read about me" kind of thing. On your blog you can talk about Old Number One for as long as you'd like without interruption. ME, ME, ME, ME, ME - it's one big Me-fest all day, everyday.

The Parent Blog genre takes a slightly different twist - a variant braggadocio, if you will - since the focus tends to be on one's offspring rather than on oneself. We tell ourselves that it is for the family, but somewhere along the line stories pop out to let the reader know that my kid is so cute/smart/funny/loveable that there should be world wide access to his life!

Now that I have admitted this I will proceed with my thinly veiled attempt to show you how cute/smart/funny/loveable my own kid is. Get ready to be wowed and you might want to bring along a Grain of Salt, too (though this is, of course, all true).

Megan's doctor's appointment wasn't all bad. While we waited we read the handout titled "Your 18 month old" (or something equally clever). We were immediately impressed by how far ahead Megan is developmentally (except for that stupid bottle thing). And though we've always thought Megan was a bit slow with her motor skills, according to the handout, she was doing about right.

The handout stated an 18 month old should have 10-15 words. 10-15 words! Psshaw - we laugh at this paltry number! Megan could do 15 words before her first birthday. She's now doing 10 times that. Admittedly, many of them require an interpreter (most of the R's and S's get omitted along with a lot of the N's in the middle of words), but nonetheless, the comprehension is there. In fact Megan gave up "signing" completely about two months ago - she can now say everything she ever learned to sign and then some.

"An 18 month old should be able to point to body parts when named." But Megan doesn't need us to do the naming! She's great at the "what's this?" game. She's got a great repetoir: toe, foot, leg, knee, "tum" (tummy), "BOTT-m" (bottom), "button" (belly button), "nip-nip" (nipple), neck, chin, lips, "tug" (tongue), teeth, nose, cheek, eyes, ear, "eye bow" (eye brow), head, hair, elbow, "wist" (wrist), "hag" (hand), "fee-ger" (finger), "KNUCK-el" (knuckle), back. In the last week she's also gotten really good mastery of the possessive - this threw her off forever! "Megan, where is Daddy's nose?" She'd point to her own nose. Now she get's it right and even uses the possessive herself: Daddy's, mommy's and "Mega's". (A kid's brain is so baffling. Ask Megan her name and she will tell you "May-may." She came up with this herself, though we use it some. But when she point's to her stuff it is always "Mega's").

During the exam, Megan was able to lift her shirt when asked and pointed to her tummy right on cue. She then promptly stuck her finger in her umbilicus and loudly announced, "button!"

"She's smart." the doctor declared.

To prove the point, Megan grabbed by jewelry and blurted "neckliss." The doc asked to see Megan's teeth. She pointed to her pearly whites and let out an exuberant "teeth." (what a show off)

"Wow, she is smart!" Hey this is coming from a non-biased, heavily trained professional whose job is to assess kids, so we don't feel that we can discount this diagnosis!