Last week I posted about fish oils and why I feel they are superior to flax oils for Omega3 and DHA supplementation. With all the research that has been done into our body’s ability to convert the flax into useful DHA I still think fish oils are superior for that purpose. Of course flax seeds are still beneficial on many levels. They just may not be the best source for DHA.

Fish oils admittedly have their own issues though. For one, vegans won’t touch them. ;) Also a diet of fish, flesh or oil, can increase our exposure to environmental toxins and mercury. Low quality fish oils on the market have a high lard content and this is especially bad. Within the body…human or fish, toxins get stored in the fatty tissue if they cannot be expelled. So a fish oil capsule that has a high lard content is getting a concentrated dose of whatever toxins those fish had in their bodies. Yuck.

The higher quality fish oils go through a purification process to remove as much of the lard and toxins as possible but as a commenter last week mentioned this may also mean the good stuff is lost along with the bad. This means there is a good chance that they will add the nutrients and lost components back into the oil but they would likely be synthetic. Synthetic vitamins and minerals are a BAD idea.

So, are we just generally screwed then? Well, my lovely and smart readers (yeah I love you guys) pointed out a solution. We can get Omega3/DHA from algae supplements. In fact this is where the fish get it so it is like going straight to the source. We take algae supplements but I never even connected the dots on it being a relatively pure source of DHA. I searched around the net to see if algae actually has DHA or if it has ALA like flax seeds. From the various sites I found it appears algae does have DHA which is good news. Also the algae for supplements is grown in fermentation tanks and therefore contains no ocean-borne contaminants. Of course not being an ocean grown organism can mean they they are missing out on some of the nutrients they might otherwise get from their eco habitat but no pollution is a good thing too.

My kids and I actually already supplement with algae as I mentioned so we will likely just continue with that and forget the fish oils.

Kristen recommends NuTru’s O-Mega-Zen3.

We have some NOW DHA Omega Supreme which has flax seed oil and algae oil. We also have Vitamineral Green which is a raw, organic, whole green food powder which has spirulina and chlorella algae.

I love having such a great community of moms join me here to share thier knowledge. It is a wonderful thing!

Photo Credit: Flickr

Boon has quickly become one of my favorite companies for kids products. Their BPA free bowls and utensils for kids rock, they have an awesome potty bench that we are using, and the design is modern yet slightly retro. The design mom in me loves them. Oh and they are also sticklers for safe plastics that won’t poison our kids.

They have just come out with some really cute and safe bath toys that are free of BPA, PVC, and phthalates.

The Scrubble (picture above) - A set of three interchangeable bulbs and textured attachments. For fun, fill the bulb with water and squeeze it out. The toys are easy to keep clean, just unscrew the parts—and they can even go in the dishwasher.

The Splat – This is a really cool looking, floating ring toss. How fun is that? Includes one floating post and three colorful rings.

Water Bugs – Kids can scoop up these colorful critters as they glide across the water. Set includes three floating bugs and a mesh net. My kids would LOVE this!

This is an update to my post about speech therapy for my 3 year old. I ended up contacting our local school district to see if I could have him evaluated and made an appointment for him to meet with a teacher who specializes in developmental delays. Today was his appointment.

Parker (my son) had a blast. The evaluation was in a preschool classroom and he just loved it and had a hard time concentrating he was so excited. They did a series of tests like having him stack blocks, identify pictures, sort items, color match, etc. His receptive communication skills are/were pretty darn excellent despite his excitement. He also showed both evaluators that he is a very smart boy…you show him how to do something once and he picks up on it immediately and duplicates. Both evaluators declared that there is nothing wrong with his understanding and aptitude, he is in fact advanced in those areas if anything. His motor skills are right where they should be although they did have a tiny bit of concern that he walks on his tippy toes quite a bit. They felt that would probably correct itself though.

They did however both agree that his verbal communication skills are seriously lacking. He talks up a storm but 90% of what he says is unintelligble. He just can’t seem to form the words and communicate. He is also very selective in what he says. He seems to be happy to say only what he needs to get by and then certain words that are appealing to him like car, dinosaur, butterfly, etc. So, they have recommended that he see a speech pathologist next week and then pending the review set him up for speech classes twice a week for an hour. They also think he should be in a Head Start preschool program but we aren’t even in the ballpark for income requirements so he would be wait listed if we do want to enroll him.

On one hand I hate to use free state services like that when we can afford private school but they don’t offer the speech services he would need. We shall see.

At any rate we go back on Thursday to the see the Speech Pathologist and see what she says. Hubby and I both went to his evaluation today and feel that he will like these sessions and they will be good for him. The teacher we met with was also very understanding about my concerns that he not be “labeled”. Which reminds that in that first post I got a comment that I shouldn’t care if he gets labeled as long as he gets the help the needs. Well, I disagree and the teacher today pointed out why I am right to feel that way.

She explained that there are certain diagnosis terms they have to use to describe the issues facing a child and she personally feels they are completely inappropriate for preschool kids. As an example she mentioned that a preschool child who has never been socialized before entering school for a developmental delay may have trouble getting along with other kids. There is nothing wrong with this. It could be that they need to learn socialization skills or that their personality makes them less likely to integrate with kids they don’t feel comfortable with. The issues could go away as they get older or get more comfortable with the other kids… we are talking preschool here. Yet when they write up their reports they can only use the term “emotional disturbance” to describe this behavior. As the teacher stated that is completely unfair to have that go in their records when they are only 3-4 years old. I think I really like this woman. :) She feels that I don’t even need to worry at this point though because we are looking at a speech delay only as far as we she can tell.

Anyway, that is where we are at. I am glad I decided to take him.