Stomach Flu again..

Well, Ella's sick with the stomach flu again (or rotavirus, or whatever else is going around).. She got violently ill yesterday, and couldn't keep anything down, not even water. By late afternoon she was getting listless and shaky, so after my wife called the pediatrician, we took her to the hospital.

Going to the hospital perked her up because it was a new place, and the doctor who saw her wasn't terribly concerned, but ordered and IV of fluids and a little bloodwork as well. Originally they were just going to IV her for an hour (200ml/hr of sodium chloride 0.9% solution), however after the bloodwork came back they upped that to 2 hours and gave her a dose of zofran for nausea.

So, we spent a bit under 4 hours at the hospital last night (from about 5 to about 9), but it turned out to be a good thing. about 75% of the way through treatment Ella felt much better and started drinking water out of a soda bottle (I got it for my wife, but Ella protested vehemently until we gave it to her). She drank about 8oz and kept it down, which was really good.

She's still quite sick, but has been able to keep fluids and simple foods down now without immediately vomiting. She got sick once today, but that's not so bad.

As for the parents, both of us are feeling a bit run down, but it's hard to tell if that's lack of sleep and stress, or if we're coming down with it too...

Hope you're all staying well...

Stair Climbing/crawling..

Our home has no stairs in it, so Ella gets little exposure to them other than concrete steps outside. So, normally she's only given the opportunity to practice walking up them.

Today we were over visiting the 3 B's and Ella successfully crawled up a short 3 step staircase without any help. Generally speaking that's no major achievement, but it was also the first time she'd ever had a chance to try :)

Also, while she was walking around between adults she did a really nice change of direction. She managed to stop, turn 90 degrees, and start going again without wiping out. While it wasn't the most graceful maneuver, it was impressive none the less. In the past she's managed to stop and resume, and she's managed to turn while walking, but she's never turned in place before.

All in all it was a lot of fun, and only mildly chaotic.

Ok, make it 10 feet...

Tonight Ella was in a braver mood, and did 10 feet (17 steps) of free walking, shattering this morning's 7 foot record. And she did it repeatedly, at least 5 round-trip laps.

One other thing I neglected to mention.. She steers herself while walking. She might start off headed at a 45 degree angle to where she's going, and she'll properly curve to get where she wants to go.

This is all very good.

Walking progress..

Well, Ella's still not walking completely on her own, but she's definitely making a lot of improvements. Since Yule we've been having her walk back and forth between us for a few steps at a time, then collapse on the receiving parent. For a while, she regressed and got more hesitant, but recently she's made good progress again.

This morning, Ella will walked a bit over 7 feet ) without touching anything to go between us (10-13 of her steps). We were sitting in the hall and our hands were about 8 1/2 feet apart, but I subtracted a bit for reach-out and push-off. She also no longer needs you to "catch" her. You can simply put one hand up (in a "stop" motion), and she'll walk over, reach out with one of her hands, and grab it for stability while she turns herself around. Most of the time she can turn around with no more stability, but occasionally she gets excited, whips around and falls over.. oops.

We still haven't gotten her to do very much in walking towards inanimate objects, but she will take 3 steps or so to get to something she's really interested in (such as her mother's keyboard so she can bang out some music..). We've had no luck at all getting her to push off from inanimate objects, although we have gotten her to use one of our knees as a push off instead of our hands.

The flu and speech therapist...

Well, thinking I was "coming down with" the flu was an understatement.. both me and Karla got hit quite severely by the flu on Saturday night. Although my stomach recovered fully by Monday morning, I was still a bit sore and weak as my body was still recovering from the abdominal muscle strain, dehydration and fever. As a result, I took today off work to recuperate.

Flu aside, Ella saw a Speech Pathologist this morning for the first time. That was fairly helpful, and we got some feedback on some of the tactics we've been using, and some tips on recognizing some of her attempts at speaking so we can better encourage them.

It was also recommended we take Ella in for an audiological screen. This is a detailed hearing test, and a test with a device called a tympanometer that bounces sound waves off the eardrum and tests the movement of the eardrum by analyzing the reflected sounds.

Ella's hearing appears to be fine because she's got an excellent receptive vocabulary (she can clearly discern over 100 words that we've counted). However, because she keeps pulling on her left ear they want to screen for fluid trapped in her ear. It's probably just a frustration or boredom habit, but it could be a sign of trouble there.

Biting lemons and the flu..

Sorry it's been a bit, but life's been busy. Ella's got the flu, and I seem to be coming down with it too.

As for the Lemons...

Last Weekend, Ella got together with JP and his mother. Among other things, we all went out to dinner at Applebees. While at dinner, JP was eating the lemon out of his mother's tea. Apparently he likes them, and is rather insistent upon having them if they're on the table...

So, I decided to try to give Ella a taste of mine.. lo and behold, she likes them too. She does make reel back and twisted faces right after biting it, but then she opens her mouth back up, leans forward and takes another bite.

However, in some of my recent reading, I found that giving a child strong-tasting foods, such as lemons, Tabasco sauce, etc , is actually a therapy method used in aiding children with speech delays. The idea is the alarming tastes cause them to focus on their mouth more, aiding oral motor development. This is, of course, presuming the child doesn't over-react to them.

So, shout-outs to JP's mom.. thanks for the free speech therapy :)

Omega-3's and dyspraxia..

Recently, there's been a lot of attention of how various omega-3 fatty acids, particularly DHA, affect autism. This has also spawned a lot of research into how various omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids affect other disorders, including dyspraxia.

Probably the best study on how fatty acids affect dyspraxia is the Oxford-Durham study from 2005. The study used 117 students with DCD, ages 5-12 in a double-blind random study (no crossover). For 3 months they were given a blend of fish oil (EPA and DHA in a 3:1 ratio) and evening primrose oil (provides GLA, which easily converts to ARA) or a placebo of olive oil. At the end of the study they found several improvements cognitive learning rate and behavior, but no motor improvements relative to the placebo group.

So, omega-3's aren't a magic arrow for the motor problems of DCD. That said, there are several DHA supplemented baby foods Ella still strongly enjoys, so her typical daily diet does contain 40mg of DHA and 8-40mg of EPA. (none of the products label their EPA content, but are fish oil based and there's always some EPA. How much varies with blending and processing.)