Last week we had an appointment with Ozzie’s Occupational and Physical Therapists.  We hadn’t seen them since October, with appointments being cancelled on account of people continuing to get sick at our house.

They were really happy with his progress, and they gave us some more things to try – i feel like he is SOOO close to getting the whole ‘crawling’ thing.  He gets up on all fours, but can’t keep his head up… he is doing a bit of the rocking, and Brad said he moved forward to grab a toy at one point.

They were happy with how he uses his hands.  At first, it looked like he only used his right hand.  In seated position, he almost never uses his left.  I thought this might lead to having his right arm in a splint, but as the appointment went on and he found himself in standing and tummytime positions, he used his left arm quite a bit.  YAY.

Oh, and a new thing – he is now signing “Ball”, which is so awesome.  He got this purple hippo toy for christmas that you put these little plastic balls in the back and he tips over and they roll out his mouth.  Ozzie likes it, but mostly, he likes the blue ball.  So, it seems that he can be taught signs, if properly motivated.

All in all, at the end of the session, it was decreed that little Ozman is at about the developmental stage of a 9 month old.  Now, he’s 15 months, but even adjusted to his corrected ages of 13 months, he’s behind.  But, that’s okay.  i will take it.  Because every day he seems to pick up something new! in fact, at the appointment he figured out how to pivot on his belly, something he’s never done before at home.  Usually he’d just roll around until he got relatively close to the thing he was after.  This ‘pivot’ thing has opened up a whole new world to him, that paired with his new ability to SIT UP from laying down… i couldn’t be more thrilled!

This morning, i had to pack up the kids in -500 degree weather (just kidding, it was -37C, with a windchill of -50C, so it might as well have been -500C) and take Ozzie to his Audiology follow up.  I dropped Ced off at my girlfriends and hoped there would be a parking space near the building.  There was.  i am awesome.

Inside, they took us to the sound booth where it was determined that yes, he still has fluid in his ears.  We did some testing, where they would play different volumes and types of white noise from varying speakers positioned around the room.  The idea being that if he can hear it, he will turn his head towards it.

He did turn his head, for some of the louder ones, but the softer ones were harder for him to hear, and harder for him to tell what direction they are coming from.

So we met with our ENT Dr. Franke, who is awesome – and looks a bit like my dad.  And after he checked out Ozzie’s ears, we talked about the pros and cons of tubes.

In the end, we decided that the pros of him being able to hear better, which will help him to speak better, being able to keep his balance better… all those good things outweigh having to have them surgically implanted, and having to keep his head above water for a year or so.

He is on the wait list for tubes.

So now we wait.  But i think it will bring all good things. So, yay for that.