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Keeping Up With The Jones

A child who speaks 2 or 3 words besides “mama” and “dada,” who can drink from a cup, is able to put one cube after another into a basket, shows interest when shown single pictures, and can take a few steps independently is what age?

Okay, so every few years I have to do recertify my board exams for both pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine and this involves a certain number of hours spent on “educational” topics. Today I was working on a “development and milestones” unit. When I was in training everyone always said that you never really learn “development” until you have your own kids. What I mean by this is that you can memorize all these little charts about when a kid loses a reflex or sits unsupported, but it won’t really “stick” until you see your own kid do it. Which I’ve found to be sort of true. I can think back now to when Eva and Zoe started smiling or scooting or crawling and have a rough idea of what age goes with what collection of accomplishments. Then again, because the two of them are so close in age, it often all blurs together and gets muddy.
But I’ve decided this is a good thing. Because otherwise I’d spend a lot of time upset. Like when I read the above paragraph during my studying. The answer is, “12 months.” Really? Well that’s unfortunate because Eva is almost 15 and Zoe turns 1 in less than 2 weeks. And what are they up to?
Well, Eva has started to say a couple words. Like, “mama” and “papa” and maybe one other. Zoe just yells random sounds. They can drink from cups but yippee. They are very good at taking cubes out of baskets, but the only thing they put into anything is food into my water glass in a restaurant. When we try to read a book, they pull it out of my hands, shut it and use it to hit one another on the head. No one is walking independently. Eva has taken a sum total of 8 steps without support but never more than 2 at a time and she cries (out of fear? Resentment?) the whole time. Zoe, 1 step. On 2 occasions.
In other words, “milestones” are a great way of judging how your kid is developing and when her development seems several months behind the majority of other children, it’s worth speaking to your pediatrician. On the other hand, these lists of social, language and motor skills and estimations and the reality is that children vary widely in their individual achievements. Which means you can’t get too worked up when your little one doesn’t meet every single skill at her anticipated age. After all, Eva is more than happy to find me a banana when asked and will feed it to me piece by piece and Zoe has figured out how to climb up the back of the sofa and onto the television cabinet (heart attack), so I think they are doing okay. Stupid book. Upsetting Mommy like that.

Dr. Lara Zibners, Jan 10, 2011

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