Day Three

Whew. We passed the hump of our first week of feeding school. Olive had her best day yet. She didn't throw up at all today, which is huge. She did get nervous when we got out of our car this morning. She gagged, but then I distracted her with looking down at the train tracks, which luckily turned her nervousness into excitement at the possibility we could see a train. So that worked out. We once again got there in the nick of time despite waking up an hour before we needed to leave. Time just seriously gets away from you with a high maintenance toddler in tow.

Bravely eating puff popcorn.

Breakfast with Polly went well. Olive drank THREE ounces of milk from a straw. That's a record for her from anything other than a bottle, and even with that, three ounces is a good day. In between her drinks, she also did a good job with fruit loops, practicing spitting them out. Polly also made very fine fruit loops crumbs that Olive would dip her fingers into and lick. She also licked some Nutella. Olive had a hard time focusing because all she could talk about was Ms. Jen. I believe her statement was "Obbie need play with Ms. Jen." She had that much fun with her yesterday.

After breakfast it was time for our first preschool class. We thought it would be with other kids, but it is actually a private hour long lesson with an infant and toddler educator named Ms. Crystal. Olive wasn't feeling it at all, especially because it was way more about meeting us and talking to Dain and me for background info today. Olive really just wanted to go. Hopefully she will be more enthusiastic about it tomorrow, when we will do more things like art and games and puzzles. Olive was excited to get back to her regular play area, and she hit the legos and train table pretty hard.

Goat cheese mustache.

We ate snack with Polly following the play time. Olive once again took three ounces of whole milk. She also did a really great job of taking bites of cheetos and spitting them out, and she once again chewed a small piece of very meltable puff popcorn. She was a pretty good listener, but she hits a wall after about ten minutes where it is like pulling teeth to get her to participate. The threat of mom and dad leaving the room worked again today though, as did the threat of not being allowed to play with Ms. Jen if she didn't listen. Polly was so pleased with Olive's intake from the morning that she didn't have us tube her snack as we normally do.

Thankfully for Ms. Olive, playtime with Jen the occupational therapist was next. Olive mostly couldn't even control her excitement. She was jumping and squealing with delight just at the sight of her, and then she just about lost it when she saw the room we were in with a big swing in it. It was basically like the Publisher's Clearing House just rolled up at Olive's door. Olive jumped right on the swing. Then Jen added an inner tube to make it a boat as well as four rubber frogs, and Olive was tickled with glee. Just absolutely sheer joy emanating from our child, which just makes your heart swell as a parent.

Olive and Ms. Jen with the rice and bean bin.

After swinging, Jen and Olive played games in an attempt to finish evaluating Olive's fine motor skills. They played a peg game putting pegs into a square peg board. Olive referred to it as the "dinner party" and would seat the "guests" (the pegs) at the "table." It was funny to see her imagination at work. Then they briefly colored, with Jen having Olive draw lines. And they wrapped up the games with a beading game where Olive strung large beads onto a thick string. Then they moved on to playing in the rice and beans bin. Olive had a hard time keeping the rice in the bin, but she had no problem getting her hands dirty. The best news is that Jen told us that Olive is completely normal from a sensory perspective. We filled out a questionnaire regarding it yesterday. That was nice to hear because different therapists have thrown around terms like "sensory issues" and "sensory sensitivities" over the past few years, but we never really thought there was any sort of sensory issue. It's just hard to put a label on her feeding problems so people tend to pull from the familiar and say oh maybe it's this or that.

It was hard for Olive to leave Jen. She seriously has a mad crush on her. After we were able to tear her away, we went for a short walk to grab lunch for ourselves to eat with Olive back in the kitchen. Olive asked for milk after the OT session, and she drank an ounce and a half while we were walking and while she was pulling her suitcase. Impressive multitasking for a two year old. The suitcase has been a staple on this trip. Polly calls it Olive's transitional item, as it helps her move from one thing to the next by giving her something to focus on.

Always ready to roll.

Lunch with Polly went well.  Olive took another three ounces of whole milk with a straw. She also did a great job with eating. Dain and I had bagel sandwiches from a local place (Bodo's), and when Olive saw our bread she wanted some too. Polly gave her a piece of bread, and Olive not only took bites of it and practiced her chewing, but she ate a good amount of goat cheese off of the bread. She did more than just licking it too as Polly coaxed her into taking a few big bites of the goat cheese. She still struggles to swallow even that, but Polly helps her to take a big breath and a drink of milk to work it down.

After lunch we headed to the day suite to try to get Olive to nap. She took another almost two ounces of milk from a bottle before nap. Polly had us once again hold off on tubing any extra. Olive had a good nap...in her mother's arms...as she feels is the way both babies and big girls should sleep. We had to wake her up again in order to make it to snack with Polly.  For snack Olive was pretty worn out. Participating was a struggle. Yet she still managed to drink another three ounces of milk from the straw. She also licked chocolate and a vanilla bean cream cheese dip.

The only other change today is that we decided to try a prescription medication (Periactin) to help increase Olive's hunger. We spoke with her regular doctor on the phone, and we all feel it's a logical next step with no likely side effects. So tonight we picked up the prescription from the local pharmacy and tomorrow Polly instructed us to give it to her about 30 minutes before breakfast. Hopefully it will help.

We are encouraged that she drank so much today. She also took about two and a half ounces of milk with us at dinner tonight so in total she drank over 16 ounces today. That's incredible considering her previous record was right around 4 ounces on an exceptional day. It's great to see that she can do that, but it is a lot of work. It's 10-15 minutes of coaxing her to take drinks, but hopefully as she gets more used to it, she'll be more comfortable with it and more willing to do it on her own. She still did not take in very much calorie wise from solid food, but she got a lot of calories from her milk today. I overthink things, and I realized that she took in today right around her goal amount for when she first came home from the hospital. Of course back then she was still under six pounds. So we've made progress, but it's hard not to think about how far we still have to go.

In more fun news, we had an awesome evening outing. A local brewery was having a pumpkin carving party. Pumpkins? Beer? Yes please. The Blue Mountain Brewery was awesome. They had heated outdoor tents decked out for pumpkin carving. You could grab a table and then pick out a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch. Then they would clean it out for you or you could leave it whole. They had a plethora of pumpkin carving supplies as well as these neat foam sticker kits that little kids could attach to the pumpkins for fun without sharp objects being involved. Olive loved it. So did we. There was live music and great beer and food. We tried the bratwurst pizza with apples, caramelized onions and a balsamic reduction. Delicious. It was a pretty great end to a solid Wednesday of trying to teach this girl to eat.