Henry at 18 months

The kid's officially a year and a half old now. Language skill improvement continues to be the most striking aspect of his development at this stage. It seems like he adds new words every day. Some good ones include "tak-ta" (tractor), "tuk" (truck), "beeeer" (bear), "tschoo" (shoe), "jeee" (jeans) and, finally, "Da-da." And if you prompt him with a "Henry, can you say (whatever)," most of the time he'll give it a try. If the word is over two syllables, he'll make it easier for himself by turning all sounds after the first one into a kind of tongue-rolling "blahlala" sound. So "banana" is "balalalala" and "balloon comes out as "baloloololo." Very funny stuff.

He's also becoming really affectionate, both with us and his stuffed animals. Big hugs and even kisses.

Unfortunately, there's also some bad news that we've been dealing with over the last few weeks. Henry's developed strabismus in his left eye. I noticed soon after we moved here that it looked like his eye was crossing in at times, but it was subtle. I couldn't tell if it was the way his eye was moving or if it just looked that way because his left eye is set in a bit deeper than the right one (apparently it's not uncommon for young kids to look cross-eyed until the bridge of their nose develops). Tom never noticed it until I pointed it out, and our pediatrician in Richmond never said anything about it, either. But last month we took a few pictures of him where it was very obvious, so we knew it was time to get it checked out. Since then we've taken him to an optometrist for an initial exam and are waiting (and waiting and waiting) for an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist for a definitive diagnosis and course of treatment. Apparently there are only two of these specialists in the entire Ottawa metro region, so the waiting list for appointments is agonizingly long. In the meantime, our copious Internet research taught us that the problem usually develops either because of farsightedness (eyes cross in while trying to focus) or a problem with the muscles controlling the eyeball. The optometrist thinks it's the latter in Henry's case, as he is not farsighted. She said the ophthalmologist would have to confirm the diagnosis and decide the best treatment, but her guess was that Henry will need surgery to correct the problem (if strabismus isn't treated correctly in childhood, the brain will eventually start ignoring what it sees with the bad eye, and the result is a loss of depth perception).

The good news is that there's a very high success rate in treating this problem in really young kids like Henry. The bad news is. . . surgery. Ugh. It's not something we like to contemplate, but I guess we'll deal with that when the time comes. Other possible treatments include patching his good eye to force him to use the weaker one, and/ or glasses, but the optometrist wasn't sure if those will be effective for Henry's condition. Obviously, we will do whatever we have to do to help Henry preserve his vision.

It's been stressful for Tom and I to have all this on our minds, but it's not impacting Henry at all. His sight is perfectly fine (although the optometrist says he's definitely favouring his right eye), and he's the same happy, busy little boy he's been all along. I'll keep everyone updated as we learn more, but it could be awhile (like, months) before we get to see the ophthalmologist and get the definite diagnosis. In the meantime, I'll keep up with my regular posts and try not to let too long go by between entries.