The girl likes PICKLES!

It all started with lunch, last week with Faith's PT. We had sandwiches that came with a pickle spear. I didn't have anything for Faith to eat so I offered her the spear, just to see what she would do. SHE LOVED IT! She ate both mine and her PT's! So this weekend I went out and got her own jar of whole baby pickles, thinking she could hold them easier. She has eaten pickles every night since! It cracks me up because I HATE pickles...hate them...hate the smell...everything about them! BUT she loves them! Tonight she had three, biting them all the way to the end. She isn't swallowing the pickle itself, she spits it out but she is swallowing juice. I have seen her swallowing. It is such a big step in the right direction...chewing and biting....things I never thought I would see her do. It seems like she responds better to things with very strong flavors...spicy foods, pickles, peppery foods, sour candies. Stuff I could never eat until I was an adult. Some of her therapists and specialists who have treated her said that kids like Faith often do better with strong tasting foods...something about it triggering a bigger reaction or something. Who knows...who cares? I think Vlasik needs to star Faith in their next commercial...with a crunch like that she could sell some pickles, I bet!

More bites.....

A few months ago I posted some video of Faith eating....

She has been making slow, steady progress. Our feeding doctor wanted us to increase the variety of foods we try with her. So this week, I have to keep a food log, documenting what she had and how much she had. I discovered these toddler meals with pasta and vegetables and different meats. I did try some of the already pureed baby foods but she DID NOT like them. Too bland, I think. So we moved up and tried pureeing bigger kid meals and she seems to really enjoy them. Yesterday, we started with a kid's version of ABC's and 123's with veggies...a six ounce container. I split the cup and saved half for the next night.

This is about 3 oz of food.

She ate the entire amount....all three ounces...with very little coming back out, maybe a couple of baby spoons worth!

She really seemed to like eating the ones with pasta in them...

She IS her momma's daughter!
Then tonight she finished off the rest, just leaving a couple pieces of meat that didn't get mashed up!

When Faith was three, we spent 8 weeks at the Marcus Institute in Atlanta, for an intensive feeding program. She had very little success, despite every one's best efforts and HOURS and HOURS of work, everyday. But now that she IS eating, we are bringing out the old arsenal. We use a NUK brush, to give her additional input on her tongue. I collect the food in a ball on one side of the brush. I ask her to open her mouth and say "ah"...when she does I put the food at the back, middle part of her tongue then roll the NUK brush backwards off of her tongue. This technique was used to elicit a gag response, when she was smaller, to "teach" her how to swallow. Now we don't go as far back anymore, since she has figured out how to make a swallow happen. But we still do use the rolling NUK brush routine and it seems to be a good reminder to her that food is in her mouth and she needs to swallow. When I looked at these pictures, I couldn't believe that MY child had eaten all that food! I feel like it's all a big dream and I am going to wake up and she won't be eating, again. All you moms whose kids don't eat/have G tubes know that feeling of utter desperation in wanting you child to eat. For me this eating seems so foreign...I don't know how do react! I have had trouble with gauging how much is enough, when I should push her, how often I should offer her food. I feel like an alien in the weird, food world!

My child eats!

This is Faith, at speach therapy, on Wed.! Actually eating a DumDum sucker! Wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it with my own two eyes! Just look at the sheer joy on her face. A candy addict in the making (not to mention a genetic pre disposition on daddy's side)! Isn't she stinkin' cute? After all these years of food refusal, I never thought I would see the day when she would hold candy and eat it. I remember when I was pregnant saying "my child will never eat candy!" what a fool I was! I would feed her gold crusted cat turds if she would eat them! So here's to C-A-N-D-Y! HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Don't forget to pause the music at the bottom so you can hear her say CANDY! (Thanks Dr. Boucher!)

PS. Don't forget about my contest for Miracle Veterans.....

Feed me, Seymore!

My little firecracker never ceases to amaze me, when I think she isn't ready to learn something or she won't cooperate with her therapists on a new task. As some of you already know, Faith has a feeding tube, places 3 days after her first birthday. Feeding her was like participating in a marathon. Most days, feeding took up about 8 hrs! We would feed her about every 4 hrs and a feeding could easily be 2 hrs or more! At first we refused the feeding tube but after a yr of this we couldn't take it anymore. Well, the tube worked great putting weight on but alas, we did not continue to force the feeding thing, like we should have. So now, she doesn't swallow voluntarily. As I have talked about before, she spent 8 weeks in an intensive feeding program in Atlanta in 2007, but we had minimal success. So, after the dx of her tumor that summer we quit pushing feeding all together. We quit feeding therapy, stopped forcing food in her mouth, stopped oral motor exercises (exept speech stuff). Well, after all this time, she has suddenly decided that she wants to EAT!!! She has started begging for our food, putting her hands in our plates, pretending with spoons and plates(like she's eating!)!
Which brings me to tonight. At dinner, we started putting her back in her booster seat and giving her a plate and spoon. Tonight we put a few broken up noodles w/ sauce on her plate and she dillegently tried her best to figure out how to get noodles on a spoon and then take them to her mouth. Now, she still isn't swallowing anything, but this is such a BIG DEAL! She gets so excited if she gets a taste of something, anything! I tried giving her a taste of a green bell pepper last night and she went "MMMMMMMM" like it was ice cream or something! It was sooo FREAKING cute! Every time she got it in her mouth we would break into voratious cheers and dance all around the table, and she would just laugh and dance with her hands. I don't want to jinks us but maybe she will eat one day, after all. I must say, I underestimated her and had pretty much given up on eating all together. She likes to do that kind of thing and surprise me, alot. I guess I should not make such quick assumptions (well, not quick after 5+ yrs!). She even begged for my cereal this morning. She is so darn cute, I could never deny her! Way to go, Faithy, keep me guessing, I can take it!