Does she know 6 words?

That was the question the Pediatric Neurologist from Primary Children's Hospital asked me this morning while she examined Rebecca at the NICU Follow-up clinic.

"Does she know 6 words?"
I asked her if she meant: does Rebecca say 6 consecutive words in a sentence. And Dr. Benedict corrected me and said, "No. Does she know and speak a total of 6 words?"

HELLO??? She clearly has not been around Rebecca OR Mary-Gail. They speak 6 words to me when I'm getting them out of their crib!!

"Morning!" is what Rebecca will always say. "Outside in the world" is what Mary-Gail says. (After I change her diaper I carry her to her window and open the drapes & blinds and say "Good morning to everyone outside in the world" to which Mary-Gail repeats the last part).

Dr. Benedict said the criteria for an 18 month old is to speak 6 words, know 4 body parts, respond to & point to objects in picture books when you ask where it is ("where's the ball?"), and have developed fine & gross motor skilss. Well, what do you do when your 18 month old (adjusted age) beats all the criteria for most 3 year olds?

Our visits this morning went well. I had the girls in for their appointments by 8:15am and we were done by 10:45am. We saw the Pediatric Opthamologist, Dr. Driese, and then Rebecca saw Dr. Benedict, the Pediatric Neurologist. Rebecca & Mary-Gail both passed their eye exams (they had to have their eyes dilated) and Rebecca passed her neuro exam. Although, here is a funny story:

Dr. Benedict asked me questions like: Does she walk? Does she run? Does she jump? Does she kick a ball? Does she throw a ball overhand? And then she asked if Rebecca stacked blocks. I said we have large Legos that she puts together to build upon, but Dr. Benedict needed to know if Rebecca put blocks on top of each other - 2 blocks, then 4, then 6, then 8, ...

I told her we didn't have blocks, but quickly reported that Rebecca is an expert with her shape-sorter and puts the colored shapes in their corresponding spots without assistance. Dr. Benedict was impressed but couldn't give Rebecca a 100% on her exam because Rebecca didn't have "experience" stacking blocks. So, let me understand something - my daughter speaks very well, knows 10 body parts (she only needed to know 4 body parts to "pass" that part of the exam), she has excellent fine motor skills, but doesn't stack blocks. Therefore, she doesn't pass the Gross Motor Skill part of the test...? OK. I just wanted to be clear. Dr. Benedict agreed that it was ridiculous, but it was a "gray area" she said.