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Mar. 24th, 2004 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckDelia has had a bruise on her forehead for about two weeks now. She keeps tipping over and landing on her face. The same spot on her head hits every time, it seems. She won't let me apply any sort of cold pack either, so the resulting bruise and lump are quite visible. Poor kid. Apparently she doesn't buy it when I tell her that the nasty feeling cold pack will make things feel better later on.
At first, I thought she was just falling while crawling, but Scott and I have both seen it happen now. She's attempting to stand. She gets her legs straight (more or less) and then tries to lift her hands. Since her hands are the only thing holding her upper body off the floor...
She's got a fourth tooth now. It just came through today. Scott and I had been speculating as to which tooth would be next since the teeth to either side of the one top tooth she had were visibly on the way. The tooth to the left won the race, so the other top center tooth will be her third on top when it finally breaks through. The teething process has been worse this time. She's been waking up a lot and crying miserably. Often, she'll sleep for less than half an hour before waking. That's pretty miserable for me, too, because half an hour is just long enough for me almost to get back to sleep.
We've been giving her infants Tylenol drops to help with the pain, and that does seem to give her some relief. I'm a little concerned though-- After I stopped giving her the vegan cheese substitute, her allergy rash began to subside again, but in the last four or five days, it's come back strongly. This may mean that I have to cut soy entirely out of my diet (a very daunting prospect) as well as from hers, or it may mean that there's something else she's allergic to. But we haven't introduced any new foods in that time span because I wanted the soy rash to be gone first.
I'm worried that she may be allergic to something in the drops, possibly the dye or the sweetener. We've used them before, once or twice after immunizations, but never more than one dose in a short period (by which I mean days). That exposure would be enough for her body to decide it was allergic to the drops without showing any really noticeable signs before now. At least, that's how her other allergies seem to be and how mine have generally worked.
I should probably call the doctor to ask if there's an alternative that lacks at least the dye. I don't know if she'd take the drops without the sweetener (corn syrup), and the rash isn't bad enough for me simply to cut the medication on suspicion alone, not when she's hurting so much. But she has figured out how to scratch now, so I need to pay attention to the rash so that she doesn't hurt herself. Her fingernails are sharp, and she hasn't yet learned to judge the force she uses.
Right now, Delia's showing a great fascination for paper. She wants to crumple it, pull it, bend it. There doesn't seem to be anything else in her environment that's nearly as fascinating. As I type, she's playing with a book she inherited from her cousins. It's a paperback picture book about baby animals. Several months from now, she might find it interesting to read, but right now, the words and pictures bore her, so I'm willing to let it be the sacrificial victim to her paper fascination. I'll rescue The Fox in Socks because she loves hearing it and The Night Before Christmas because I'm sentimental about it, but I'll let her beat on this one. The part of me that anthropomorphizes books feels guilty for letting this one suffer, but...
Delia's recently come to the astonishing conclusion that she can demand my attention in ways other than crying. If I'm sitting somewhere, she'll come over and butt her head against my legs or sit about two feet away and call to me. I've been trying to get her to understand that she needs to be just a tiny bit closer (in the latter case) for me to be able to pick her up, but she still consistently stops that little bit out of my reach and waves her arms at me, waiting to be picked up.
Part of this novel realization is a sudden awareness that she can somehow let me know when she's hungry (and I think she knows the word "hungry" now). When she comes looking for my attention, I'll often offer to feed her, and she makes encouraging noises when that's what she wants and continues to sound demanding when it isn't. She'll also grab my leg when I'm standing or walking and start trying to pull herself up it.
This evening, she managed to stand for about 10 seconds. She was kind of more squatting than standing, sort of (as Scott puts it) looking like a sumo wrestler. She looked utterly astonished and very pleased with herself. She'll be walking soon...
At first, I thought she was just falling while crawling, but Scott and I have both seen it happen now. She's attempting to stand. She gets her legs straight (more or less) and then tries to lift her hands. Since her hands are the only thing holding her upper body off the floor...
She's got a fourth tooth now. It just came through today. Scott and I had been speculating as to which tooth would be next since the teeth to either side of the one top tooth she had were visibly on the way. The tooth to the left won the race, so the other top center tooth will be her third on top when it finally breaks through. The teething process has been worse this time. She's been waking up a lot and crying miserably. Often, she'll sleep for less than half an hour before waking. That's pretty miserable for me, too, because half an hour is just long enough for me almost to get back to sleep.
We've been giving her infants Tylenol drops to help with the pain, and that does seem to give her some relief. I'm a little concerned though-- After I stopped giving her the vegan cheese substitute, her allergy rash began to subside again, but in the last four or five days, it's come back strongly. This may mean that I have to cut soy entirely out of my diet (a very daunting prospect) as well as from hers, or it may mean that there's something else she's allergic to. But we haven't introduced any new foods in that time span because I wanted the soy rash to be gone first.
I'm worried that she may be allergic to something in the drops, possibly the dye or the sweetener. We've used them before, once or twice after immunizations, but never more than one dose in a short period (by which I mean days). That exposure would be enough for her body to decide it was allergic to the drops without showing any really noticeable signs before now. At least, that's how her other allergies seem to be and how mine have generally worked.
I should probably call the doctor to ask if there's an alternative that lacks at least the dye. I don't know if she'd take the drops without the sweetener (corn syrup), and the rash isn't bad enough for me simply to cut the medication on suspicion alone, not when she's hurting so much. But she has figured out how to scratch now, so I need to pay attention to the rash so that she doesn't hurt herself. Her fingernails are sharp, and she hasn't yet learned to judge the force she uses.
Right now, Delia's showing a great fascination for paper. She wants to crumple it, pull it, bend it. There doesn't seem to be anything else in her environment that's nearly as fascinating. As I type, she's playing with a book she inherited from her cousins. It's a paperback picture book about baby animals. Several months from now, she might find it interesting to read, but right now, the words and pictures bore her, so I'm willing to let it be the sacrificial victim to her paper fascination. I'll rescue The Fox in Socks because she loves hearing it and The Night Before Christmas because I'm sentimental about it, but I'll let her beat on this one. The part of me that anthropomorphizes books feels guilty for letting this one suffer, but...
Delia's recently come to the astonishing conclusion that she can demand my attention in ways other than crying. If I'm sitting somewhere, she'll come over and butt her head against my legs or sit about two feet away and call to me. I've been trying to get her to understand that she needs to be just a tiny bit closer (in the latter case) for me to be able to pick her up, but she still consistently stops that little bit out of my reach and waves her arms at me, waiting to be picked up.
Part of this novel realization is a sudden awareness that she can somehow let me know when she's hungry (and I think she knows the word "hungry" now). When she comes looking for my attention, I'll often offer to feed her, and she makes encouraging noises when that's what she wants and continues to sound demanding when it isn't. She'll also grab my leg when I'm standing or walking and start trying to pull herself up it.
This evening, she managed to stand for about 10 seconds. She was kind of more squatting than standing, sort of (as Scott puts it) looking like a sumo wrestler. She looked utterly astonished and very pleased with herself. She'll be walking soon...
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-24 05:47 pm (UTC)The allergies must be so frustrating to deal with. I wonder if humans really are more allergic to more things now, or if kids a hundred years ago would simply have died before anyone worked out that's what it was. Possibly both.
But, man, not even soy products...at this rate, the two of you may be stuck eating nothing but fresh carrots and lettuce.
*hugs and wishes luck*
no subject
Date: 2004-03-24 07:48 pm (UTC)We are at least still safe with the veggies, fruits, grains and meats we've tried. It's just that almost any prepackaged food meant for adults will have at least a little soy.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-24 06:42 pm (UTC)It is so amazing to hear about all that she is doing now! She is just too neat!
no subject
Date: 2004-03-24 08:03 pm (UTC)Hee...I bet she grows up to a book designer, or graphic artist! Neatness.
Does she talk at all yet, or is it still just a lot of syllables strung together?
no subject
Date: 2004-03-24 11:14 pm (UTC)Sadly he didn't stop at the books, though. *eyes wallpaper*
Ah well. ^_^
I hope the allergies clear up soon. Maybe it'll get better once teething's over with - it does seem to lower their resistance and immunity to all sorts of things, poor mites.
Paper Obsession
Date: 2004-03-25 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-21 06:55 am (UTC)It's really maddening how much junk gets mixed in with packaged foods and medicines. Did you know that most pills contain lactose? Most people who have problems with milk are only moderately intolerant to lactose, and only take a few pills in a day, so it doesn't bother them. But folks with the anaphylactic kind of allergy are in real trouble, without their own compounding pharmacy. (You might want to look for one, if you can't find what you need commercially. You take them a prescription and they make your medicine as prescribed. If your dr doesn't know of a local one, the information desk at University Hospital probably does.)
My big problem is with artificial sweeteners. They're ALL migraine triggers. Yes, even sucralose, which is supposed to be so safe and wonderful that they're putting it in everything. There's a series of children's medicines for cold and flu..."simply cough," "simply stuffy," "simply fever." The idea is to get just the medicine you want, not a scattershot combination thing, with minimal additives. And they're sugar-sweetened, so I thought the "simply cough" would be safe. Nope. It has sugar AND sucralose. What were they thinking?
no subject
Date: 2004-04-21 09:03 am (UTC)What you run into with artificial sweetners sounds dreadful. I'm generally only checking for nutrasweet (which gives me very bad rash), but the other stuff makes me nervous because I never know if I'm going to have problems with it.
Valerie (who has two kids now) tells me that she's heard that you can get suppositories with acetaminephin and no additives. But I really don't like the idea of trying to give Delia a suppository. They're miserable, and she would *not* understand.