18-month checkup

Here are Rachel's latest stats, and then a long entry follows. I have thoughtfully put the stats first so those of you who don't want to listen to a long worry rant can skip the entry:

Her head measures 18.5 inches, 50th percentile
Her weight is 22 pounds, 1 oz. (lower end of the scale, but I didn't catch the percentile)
Her length (height, it's called now) is 33.5 inches, 90th percentile

So, she is almost off the charts in terms of height. Dr. Rappaport said that may be why she looks so thin -- she is so tall for her age. We told him what we feed her, and he completely approved -- at least we don't give her Cheetos and chicken nuggets, and he liked the Gardenburgers and whole wheat everything else -- but he's still a little concerned about her weight. So we need to bring her back in two months for a weight check.

He also was worried that she doesn't say a lot of words clearly yet. She says mommy, papa, cra-ca, bye-bye, an occasional hi and that's it. So we need to schedule an audiology test, and then she'll also be tested by a speech and early language person, and then an early intervention person who may have to give us exercises that we need to do with her at home...blah blah blah until I quietly started freaking out. A good friend of ours, a mom whom I trust, told me the "20 by 20" rule - 20 words by 20 months. Rachel isn't even NEAR that. She's a kid who loves books, they're the first things she reaches for in the morning, and she's excellent at following directions, but she can't speak. I was devastated. Why are we even in the position of having to test her? I just thought she'd start speaking. I didn't think she'd need any help!

Then I started to feel guilty. We haven't put Rachel anywhere near a TV and when we're in the house we play NPR, jazz or classical music in the background. And we read to her a lot. But I confess that sometimes when I'm alone with her during dinner, I tend to read the newspaper instead of talk to her all the time. (I tried reading the newspaper aloud to her when she was littler but I lost the meaning of the stories because I was focused on reading aloud. So, I stopped). And sometimes when we take walks I just like to walk in silence rather than chatter away constantly. Could that be contributing to the slowness of language development?

"She does everything late!" I wailed to Drew, who conveniently went to Seattle today. "She walked late..."
"She ARRIVED late, remember?" he reminded me.

Luckily I had a talk with my friend Dan, who has raised two motivated, intelligent, well-adjusted children who now have children of their own. He told me his son, Daniel, didn't talk until he was 2, most likely because his big sister, Lauren, was talking so much. Lauren is a high school language arts teacher; Daniel just landed an amazing job with the U.S. Patent Office evaluating patent applications for biotech firms. He has his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Virginia and is making more money than me in his 20s.

So I will try not to worry. Much.