Today during sacrament meeting at church John and I looked down at Wes, who was sprawled across both our laps, dead asleep, and John whispered, “When did he get so big?”

It’s true. Wes was 3 lbs 15 oz at birth and so small you could pretty much hold the trunk of his body in the palm of your hand.

He’s still small for his age–he wears about size 12 month clothes (and we have to roll up his pant legs twice) even though he’s 22 months old –but he has definitely grown.

I was carrying him out of church today and he felt like a load of bricks on my hip. I think he weighs about 20-21 lbs. Which, as you parents know, is the magic number for moving the kid from the backward-facing infant car seat to the front-facing BIG BOY car seat.

I bought him a front-facing car seat a while ago when I saw it at CostCo at a good price. The outside of the box said the child needs to be 22 pounds to sit the seat facing front. OK. Wes is really close. So we got the seat out of the box to see what it was like and to see how Wes fit in it.

And then I looked at the actual instruction booklet, which sneakily includes more details than the outside of the box. It says the kid has to be 22 lbs AND 34 inches tall.

Wes is only 30 inches. Which is a huge improvement from the 16 inches he was at birth, but it’s taken him almost two years to put on those 14 inches. How long will it take him to get an extra four inches???

Also, when will he get more teeth? We’re extremely proud of his current two teeth. We waited a long time for them. But Wes is going to be 2 in less than two months, and how many 2-year-olds do you know with only two teeth? Alas, another lesson in patience. He doesn’t mind, in any case. He can still eat pretzels, and in his mind, this is all that matters.

I read the other day that if your child is 18 months old and doesn’t say a couple words in addition to “mama” and “dada” then he or she is probably speech delayed.

I thought, “Wow! Kids at 18 months can talk?” This was astounding to me. Since Wes is my standard, I forget that he’s not the standard for “normal” kids. Wes is nowhere near talking. But he knows three signs really well: 1) more, 2) please, and 3) snack. The essentials, you know.

I wonder when he will talk. Wes is really excellent at some things. Like physically he’s strong and athletic and loves to move and run (which is unusual for kids with Down syndrome; they usually tend to be more lethargic because of low muscle tone). He has a terrific attention span and keeps working at things even when he can’t get them right away.

But the one thing that it’s obvious he’s slower at is imitation, especially imitating sounds. I guess this is why it took him 19 months to learn his first sign, even after I’d been doing that sign to him for over a year. With sounds, we can’t get him to imitate at all. He’s really great at watching you make the sound, though, if that counts for anything. He’ll often smile at you, too, because he thinks you’re funny.

But he babbles and talks to himself (makes sounds) when he plays, and his speech therapist says that at least that’s something.

I just know that his increase in height and weight is only one indication of how much he’s grown. I was looking back at our blog posts when Wes first joined us and, wow–both he and we have come a long way.

All I’m asking for now is four more inches, just four more inches…