1 year corrected NICU appt

Yesterday we had their appointment. We had to fill out a big long checklist for each of the girls so we had a pretty good idea of where they were at going into the appoinment - so not too much stress! They've added a speech therapist to the usual pediatrician, nurse and occupational therapist. They just observe, play with them and ask us a ton of questions - it can get pretty intense. Emma is right on track in terms of her gross motor (sitting,crawling, standing, walking stuff). They are pleased with how she moves and what she is capable of doing. It's funny because it's just not a matter of can they do something - it's more can they do it properly in terms of their weight shifting, agility, coordination etc. As we all know Leah is behind in gross motor. As I mentioned before, John and I are not overly concerned because she is making very good progress. I was very happy to hear they had the same opinion and there was no freaking out - not even a little! They are very pleased with the way she moves and how agile she is! Again, this is exactly what I think! They both got perfect scores for all the cognitive stuff (communication, social skills etc). They are a bit behind on verbal - but this might be my fault. They asked how many words they have...I think I have issue with what a word is. Emma makes a noise everytime she wants something - to me that is not a word but to them it is. So I think I might have scored them a bit low on verbal because we said they only had 4 or 5 words that I know are words. Either way they are not concerned because boy can they "talk" - they were very chatty throughout the whole appointment. Just to ensure proper care and minimal wait time should anything happen in the next few months they have registered them with our regional preschool speech therapy program. So that was that. They gave us lots of reading material for what they are expecting at the 18 month appointment. I was telling John that although I am grateful that the girls are monitored and we informed as to what is age appropriate (I seem to preface every NICU appointment with that sentence!), I find it's a bit of a fun sucker having all these checklists and things they must accomplish by their next appointment or be deemed delayed. It would be nice to be completely oblivious and enjoy watching them grow and learn without ever having to doubt that they weren't perfect in every way! On the other hand I am learning so much about child development with minimal effort which is nice. After our appointment we headed to Oshawa to visit with John's Grandpa. He has no air conditioning and it was hot. We spent most of our time under the trees in his front yard trying to convince the girls that they didn't want to eat grass, dead leaves and dirt. Having learned from the Guelph bedtime fiasco the other week, we waited until 8 and gave them their bedtime bottles before we left. They were both awake and chatting to each other by the time we got home just after 9 but we put them in their cribs and they went to sleep. Success!