Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Happy New Year!

We have started 2008 a little under the weather. I went to get Michael up this morning for school, and Nick was awake. Great. He needs to get ready for therapy anyway. I bent over and stroked his head. He was burning up. He had been congested a little bit in the morning yesterday but nothing out of the norm. Today, he was running a fever(102 after tylenol)and was pretty lethargic. He did not even want anything to eat-all he wanted to do was go to bed. Michael really wanted to ride his bike to school, but it was raining out and in the 30's so I told him "No way, I am taking you". He was a little miffed, but got over it.

Now, on to Nick. He slept for most of the morning. We did take him to his Speech therapy, and although he did not perform up to par(mostly just sat there), it gave me a chance to have a good conversation with his therapist regarding his eating. We have to start all over from scratch. This means going back to infant days. Nick has to learn to play with his food. Normal developing kids do this by mouthing anything they can put in their mouths. Nick never did that. The only thing I remember going into his mouth were his hands-he never put anything from the floor in his mouth, or explored textures in this manner. He has trouble touching anything that is mushy or slimy...we have to force him to touch food on his tray. It is going to be a slow process. We are starting with GF/CF cereal. I have to put a few on his tray, and we go through drills of touching them. Now we are working on picking them up. Eventually, we will get them closer and closer to his mouth. The hands and mouth are somehow connected in this way. He must first explore food with his hands, and we were told that his mouth will naturally be the next step. She said she has treated kids like this for many years, and is now working with a 13 yr old who still has issues with texture. So, this will be a long and tough road. As you can imagine, we not only have to deal with texture issues, but also with a kid who resists changes in his routine. Nick is so sensitive that he cannot see or hear me making any changes to his food-if it so much as smells different, is funny looking, has things dangling from the spoon, if it has a spec of something unfamiliar-he won't eat it. If there is a bowl of something unwanted on the table-he won't eat. I had to hide the food processor from his sight in the high chair because he refused to eat anything and kept staring at it and whining.

I called about his OT today, and they should be getting back with me with another evaluation date. We will be starting our own exercises in the meantime. Mostly putting deep pressure on his hands and getting them used to sensory input. We are also revving up our home program. Lots to accomplish in 2008! Here are some of our goals:
Get Nick eating more tablefoods
Start Potty Training
Identify more body parts
More speaking and requesting what he wants.

We have a lot of work to do!