Day Six

Another day in the books. Thankfully Olive woke up without a fever and feeling much better. She was still a little tired today, but it's hard to say what that is from, especially since the most common side effect of her appetite stimulant medicine is tiredness. We were just happy that whatever was bothering her yesterday didn't escalate. She was fairly cheerful throughout the day, only throwing fits when Polly was trying to get her to taste something she didn't want or take a bite when she was stressed out. Her new thing is to just scream at the top of her lungs and throw things on the floor when she has reached her limit with her feeding sessions with Polly. So that's fun.

Taking bites of bread.

Olive gagged in the parking ramp right when we arrived at UVA this morning. I grabbed her and ran over to look down the parking ramp at the train tracks. This distracted her enough that she didn't throw up. A good start to our Monday.  Before we arrived we followed the same plan from last week, which was to tube about an ounce of water and two ounces of Olive's typical breakfast blend along with her medicine. Once she got over her initial nerves, Olive settled in nicely to the play area saying good morning to Ms. Patty and heading for the legos to build a castle.

Working at the car wash.

This Monday did not go as well as last Monday. Olive wasn't very interested in tasting anything. She did a good job with her milk taking three ounces, but she was a hesitant taster. Polly had her try to swish lucky charms marshmallows around her mouth. She tried two. Polly couldn't get her to try a cereal bar or yogurt. She reluctantly took a few small tastes of peanut butter. It was kind of painful to watch. Just total disinterest.

After breakfast we had a few minutes in the play area before heading up to our preschool lesson with Ms. Crystal. Olive really enjoyed that today. They started with reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar complete with a plastic caterpillar for Olive to hold and use to play with along with the book. It was Olive's first time with that book, which is totally shocking since it is everywhere. We just don't have it. Of course she loved it so I think it will be on her Christmas list. After reading they did an animal puzzle and then colored. Then they washed cars at the carwash, which Olive thoroughly enjoyed. Crystal used shaving cream as soap, and Olive pretended to wash it off with the little hose on the car wash toy set. Then Olive got to play with the kitchen. She loved it. She served us food and washed food and washed dishes. Before we knew it, it was time to go.

Obstacle course with Ms. Jen.

Next on the agenda was snack with Polly. Olive drank four ounces of milk, but for her to do this takes work. She is asked to take the drinks, and Polly has to persuade her to do so. The winner today was a latches puzzle that she would play with while she drank her milk. She once again didn't do very well with food at snack. She took a few bites of goat cheese and licked some Cheetos. Polly is really trying to teach her to chew on her molars or her "big girl teeth" as Olive calls them, but this really scares O. She'll try once or twice, but then she gets frustrated. She also wants to do everything herself and not let Polly help place the food on those back teeth. So it is still a lot of biting with her front teeth and spitting out the pieces. Polly thinks that once Olive turns three she will hopefully be more open to letting us help and be better at following through with our directions.

Thankfully after snack came Ms. Jen. Olive was ecstatic. She bounded into the room skipping and jumping. First they did an obstacle course with mats and a trampoline. Then they moved on to another fishing puzzle and then stringing beads. The string was a lot smaller than O did last week and the beads were harder to get on, but she stuck with it. Then we did bubbles, which was a great activity for Olive because she got to use her mouth to try to blow the bubbles from wands and various bubble toys. She happily put the unfamiliar bubble toys in her mouth of course unlike food. It was a good oral motor skill activity though, and Olive loved it. They ended with playing with cars before we had to drag Olive away promising to come back tomorrow. We made a very quick lunch run for ourselves and then met Polly back in the kitchen for Olive's lunch.

Bubbles.

Olive did a better job with lunch. She is obviously hungry. She says "I hungry," and while we were out grabbing lunch she told me "Obbie tummy make noise mommy." I think it was grumbling. A new sensation for her. She's trying to grasp that the food will make her tummy feel better, but she just doesn't understand. When we tell her the food will go to her tummy, she lifts up her shirt and tries to put food into her tube. Polly told us that around age four kids start to realize that other people don't have tubes, and they start to want to get rid of it. Let us hope. My goal is for her to be tube free before kindergarten.

For lunch Olive drank her milk again, and she did a good job biting bread. She also took a few sizable bites of goat cheese and some spoonfuls of pickle milk (greek yogurt mixed with pickle juice.) She also tasted chicken noodle soup and even drank some with a straw. She also had a major attitude once she reached her end. It's like she's starving, but she a) doesn't know how to fix that problem and b) is too scared to try even with someone directing her. Polly also thought that she may be so hungry that she felt nauseated. So really all we can do is work on these skills, improve upon them over time, and wait for Olive to get it. It's going to be a long road.

It doesn't come easy.

After lunch we headed to the day suite where Olive took another two ounces of milk from her bottle and then napped for a little over an hour. She played in the play area for a little while before our last snack with Polly for the day. At snack she did a great job of taking a couple bites of cheetos on her back molars. She also took some big tastes of pickle milk off of her spoon. She took more bites of bread, but she wasn't open to it as soon as Polly put peanut butter on it. She threw it on the floor. Polly had to throw down the threat of mommy and daddy leaving. Although I think O is more open to that than she was last week. They moved on with tasting Nutella. Olive took some tentative licks. She did drink four ounces of milk though so that is good calories in. Polly had us tube less than half of her normal lunch blend. Luckily her weight is up from when we arrived. We had another weigh in today. She weighs in at a whopping 10.65 kilos (about 23 1/2 pounds.)

Already training for the President's Fitness Challenge.

After snack we headed back to the hotel to relax. We found a park near the hotel that we thought we could walk to as it was a warm sunny day. We loaded Olive in the stroller for our .8 mile trek following Google Maps. It went great until we realized that we would either have to cross a creek or walk on the side of a highway. Admittedly it did say "use caution." So that was a bust. We drove. But Olive had a great time. And now we are just chilling in the hotel room after a much needed bath on Olive's part. Hopefully Olive will do a good job eating and drinking for us tonight.

The safety totter at Azalea Park.