What finally prompted me to sit at the computer and blog rather than design vinyl, is Nathan. Not that Emma and Matthew aren't fascinating creatures as well, but we've started on a heck of a journey with Nathan, and I thought it would be fun to follow it here.
As some of you know, Nathan has severe eating problems. I know what most of you are thinking...he's two...of course he's a picky eater! This goes WAY beyond that. There are very few foods that he will eat, and very few foods that he would EVER eat. He just hasn't progressed as he should have in this regard. He doesn't feed himself, shows no interest in holding his own utensils, won't try new foods, won't even try familiar foods if presented differently than normal. Hates texture, won't take bites of food, doesn't chew food well...and the list goes on. For the last several months, he has survived on dry cereal, crackers, soy yogurt (the only thing he will let us feed him), and french fries. I'm not kidding.
We have finally sought help, and have learned that he has severe sensory disfunction. He hates texture, hates extremes, gets uncomfortable with loud noises, severely withdraws around unfamiliar and less-familiar people, etc. All of this is interfering with his development and learning...especially in the area of food.
To try and make a long story short...we are now seeing an occupational therapist every week to try and help Nathan overcome some of his sensory issues, and hopefully, get him to branch out and try new foods eventually. My goal has been to make our home a texture library. We have Play-doh, rice bins, bean bins, bubbles, shaving cream, moldable sand, etc. and we play with as many things as we can each day. Nathan is not always a willing subject. As of a week ago, he wouldn't even touch Play-doh. When he got up the nerve to put one finger on it, he re-coiled, and rubbed his fingers together like they had gotten dirty. So strange! In the last week we have gone from that, to Nathan picking up balls of Play-doh and putting them in the back of his little trucks and driving them around! He still won't squish it, but at least he's touching it!
Today I introduced him to the rice bin. I showed him how it runs through a funnel, how to scoop it into a bowl with a tablespoon, how we can bury his cars in it (he didn't really like that!), and he seemed to be doing pretty well. He certainly didn't dig his hands in and start going for it like most kids would, but he did touch it, and that's good. Toward the end of the day, I was trying to show him again how to scoop it into a bowl with a tablespoon, and trying to get him to do it. After running downstairs to get something, I came back up to hear him giggling uncontrollably, and found this:
Yes, he has discovered that it's much more fun to dump the tablespoon full of rice onto the floor and watch the rice scatter...put it in a bowl? Nah....that's boring!
In this one, you can actually see the rice bouncing! You can also see how much rice I had to vacuum up once I put a stop to the dumping.
Well, at least he had fun with it, right? We'll take every small victory we can! Stay tuned for more updates on this long journey....and some updates on the other ones as well! : )
