Pondering Flu Shots

Ronin's OT eval was fine. He's doing great as a kid. Some low muscle tone, needs some upper body work, but we knew that since he became sickly with his asthma, plus his food allergies. Classic case. We're still doing speech therapy because Pete says he needs to work on his cognitive and expressive language. OK, fine. I suppose I could call the coordinator and just tell her we're through with speech, but Denis was in favor of continuing it. FIIIIINE, I'll keep going. It doesn't hurt, but I don't want Pete to put any more useless thoughts into my head.

I'm worried every time I hear Ronin cough, and tonight Audrey's been hacking away. I felt her forehead and she's not warm at all, but it could be something viral. I'll have to see how she is in the morning. Ronin had a flu shot at the new allergist's office. They watched his reaction to it, because the flu shot normally has egg in it. He did fine. On Saturday both Nikko and Audrey will get the flu shot at the pediatrician's office. We are going to have to wait until they get the H1N1 vaccine. My friend Alexa stood in line for 7.5 hours to get herself and her daughter vaccinated. I don't know where. But that is a LONG time. There are so many pros and cons to getting the vax, it would make your head spin. There are overall cons for the kids because they are all at risk, Nikko has developmental delays/neurological delays, Ronin has asthma, and Audrey is just one year old. Nikko's autism could also be aggravated by any mercury or thimerasol or anything funky in the vax. Actually, ALL the kids could be affected by something in the vax down the road. I'm slightly nervous about Audrey's future shots because there's a possibility that any vax, flu shot, H1N1 shot or regular ped shot could make her regress. Nikko was pretty much born with his neurological delays in my book, despite his achieving most of his milestones like sitting up and walking, but he was never pointing or waving or clapping his hands when he was a baby. He waved for a very short period of time, but lost the skill. Therefore, I don't believe that vaccines caused his autism. But could they cause it in the other kids? I think Ronin is in the clear, he's over 2 years old, but after shots and sicknesses you never know if he could regress. I've read that it happened to someone on one of the autism boards, the boy Zavier was 28 months when he regressed after getting sick or shots. That is so scary. Especially since Ronin is talking and is so sharp. Guess I should be nicer to him than I was today. LOL! And Audrey seems to be developing quite normally, she can clap, pick up small objects with a pincer grasp, points in a rudimentary way, tries to say words like Cheese (Chssss), Ball (Bah), Pacy (Pah), Ma, Da, Duck (Dah), Pig (Pa)... that's pretty good for a 1 year old, I think! Ronin didn't even crack any real words, or close to them, until almost 20 months. We're still waiting for more from Nikko.

Walking Audrey

On Thursday, Oct. 8, I was waiting for Peter to arrive for Ronin's speech therapy session when I noticed that Audrey was pulling herself up to stand and taking 3-4 steps at a time before falling back on her butt. I saw her pull up onto her feet, then let go and stand alone for a minute at a time. In the back of my mind I said to myself, "OK, she's walking longer today. That's great!" The next day at the in-law's house she was taking 4-5 steps and standing even longer. Each day after that she has been toddling around more and more, and so this week she has truly learned how to walk. It's amazing. She's still doing some crawling, but the majority of the time she's on her feet, walking like Frankenstein. All this before her 1st birthday. YEA!

Ronin is obsessed with the Disney Cars characters. He also watches Finding Nemo, but he is fixated on playing with the matchbox-sized cars and is lamenting that he couldn't take home Doc Hudson from my friend's kid Boon's house. This evening, Pat and Anna found two Doc Hudsons at Babies R Us and dropped them off for me (I owe them moolah and thanks for that!). I'll bring one to church tomorrow and whip it out when Ronin has a meltdown. I'll save the other for when we lose the one he'll open. Ronin's speech is coming along, but not enough that I was able to get us out of another 6 months of speech therapy. Ronin was a late talker, and he's good at repeating what we say, but his spontaneous speech isn't smooth. It's still early, he'll catch up I'm sure. But Peter is making me paranoid about Ronin's behavioral problems i.e. his fixation on Cars, his inability to transition between activities (stuck on cars), and his "perseveration" on cars, according to Pete. He recommended an OT evaluation. I hope Ronin passes it well, if/when it happens, because although he is a difficult-acting child at times, I don't think he has delay or sensory issues. Peter thinks he has sensory issues. Who knows? Doesn't hurt to get the evaluation.