A Quiz For Every Age

So we came back from our first road trip with both kids last night and found a message on the machine saying that L.'s 9-month check-up was scheduled for this morning. Oops! I thought it was next week. In addition, S. had a temperature of 102.7, so I hauled her to the doctor too. Ordinarily I'd wait and see if the temperature lasted, but since I was there we checked it out (it was just a virus).

The best part of the doctor visit, though, is fast becoming the "Ages and Stages Questionnaire." Apparently these are now required for Medicaid patients and most doctors are now doing them for all patients. We first saw it at L.'s six month visit, when it asked if she could pick up Cheerios with a pincer grip and I thought "haven't tried that, since I'd worry that she'd then choke on the Cheerio."

This time the questions are getting even more bizarre. My favorite is "Does your baby poke at or try to get a crumb or Cheerio that is inside a clear bottle (such as a plastic soda-pop bottle or baby bottle)?" Since my child is not actually a monkey, we hadn't tried that.

I had question marks on a couple of others, like "when holding a toy in his hand, does your baby bang it against another toy on the table." My baby only sits at a table to eat, so we hadn't tried that one either. Therefore my baby got a big "question mark" on her score sheet for "problem solving." There were no questions for the problems she does solve, like "does your child body slam the cat so she can play with the cat's tags?"

I'm told the questionnaire is intended to start discussion on potential developmental problems. I assured the doctor that I'm not worried about L.'s problem solving; end of discussion. I also notice that the questionnaire is designed to be taken home and filled out (so you can try the Cheerio game, apparently) but I don't know of any doctors who do that, because getting parents to bring homework in is probably just totally unrealistic.

I also told the doctor that one of the questions made me laugh out loud, and she knew immediately which one it was. She said "wait for the 15-month questionnaire." Hmm.