I saved this particularly scary topic (at least for some people) for Halloween. For those with a delicate constitution who are going to be easily offended by me disagreeing with them, I recommend something more soothing to read… like maybe a science book! For everyone else, go look under the cut.
If you have a kid who was born prematurely, there’s a good chance that they have some texture issues in their mouth. Add in autism or sensory processing disorders (SPD) and you have a kid who refuses to eat what you put in front of them. As frustrating as this is, here’s how I’ve coped.
[+] Supplement with Pediasure or Boost. It is almost impossible to get enough calories into Daniel so that he can gain weight. A nutritionist put him on Pediasure when he was 2 years old and they were finally able to plot him on the growth chart. It’s not ideal for kids to get most of their calories that way but it sure does help.
[+] Gummy vitamins. If your kid likes fruit snacks, this is a way to get extra vitamins in. Again, it’s not ideal but it works.
[+] Pick your battles. Your kid only eats food shaped like a dinosaur? Congratulations! They’re typical. Order a dinosaur-shaped cookie cutter for sandwiches, stock up on those chicken nuggets, and explain that the broccoli on their plate are palm trees. No kid is perfect and it’s likely that they won’t eat what you put in front of them every time. If it is making mealtimes into battles, rethink your strategy.
[+] Find whatever you can get your kid to ingest and stick with it. Daniel has his own peanut butter jar because we use it to give him his meds and because the kid eats it out out the jar with a spoon! We allow it because it’s extra fat and calories for him, two things that my painfully thin kid needs! He loves whole milk so that’s why we buy. (I find that my crabby gut tolerates whole milk while nonfat milk makes it stabby. Lactose-free milk is twice as expensive which is why it isn’t in the budget.) We go through tons of bananas and shortbread cookies because that’s what he likes. Ditto with goldfish, cheese sticks (calcium and protein!), fruit snacks, apple juice.
[+] Model good habits. If your kids see you eating your broccoli, they are more likely to try it.
For Today…
Looking out my window… a little cloudy and chilly. It hasn’t even broken 50F yet today!
I am thinking… about what to blog on for today in the Write 31 Days challenge.
I am thankful… for a few minutes of quiet after getting home from church. Mom took Daniel to Fred Meyer and they aren’t back yet.
One of my favorite things… good choral music. We sang this for the Offertory this morning.
I am wearing… an indigo shirt and jeans. For church, I switched out my jeans for my black paisley skirt.
I am creating… Access databases.
I am listening to… various songs by NEEDTOBREATHE.
I am hoping… the Cubs win the next three World Series games. I hate all Cleveland sports teams and am wondering what deal they made with Satan for two of their teams to be doing as well as they are this year. (Usually, their teams are a joke.)
I am learning… about how to journalize and post closing entries in Practical Accounting.
In my kitchen… not sure if we’re having “family dinner” tonight with just the four of us but I’m kind of hoping we are.
In the school room… Daniel continues to do really well with his program.
Post Script… it’s Reformation Sunday today so I’m sharing the Reformation Polka.
Shared Quote…
A moment from my day… My latest addiction:
Hosted by The Simple Woman.
It’s another busy homework evening (Accounting) so here’s a blogger spotlight post to give you something to ponder.
Why Iām spotlighting this blogger: Cammie has been a friend of mine for probably 4 years now and we commiserate with each other about our kids’ conditions. Her daughter Sadie has ADHD, Maggie is severely autistic, and her boys have their own issues. She recently had her daughter Tessie and she’s got what seems to be some vision and hearing issues.
Cammie is amazing. Her kids have probably 50 appointments per month with all their doctor’s appointments and therapies… and she manages to juggle it all. There are also a number of food allergies and sensitivities between all the kids and she has to a huge amount of cooking from scratch. I can barely cope with one kid with special needs and she has five of them!
The woman seriously amazes me and I think you need to go check her out!
Parents with kids on the spectrum know how much “fun” it is to have to get those kiddos to bed at times and to keep them in bed when they are having sleep disturbances. Parents with kids who have ADHD deal with kids who have no off-switch regardless of how tired they are. Parents whose kids have both (like mine) are in a special kind of hell.
Here is what I’ve found that helps:
[+] Routines: It really does help to be able to direct your kiddo to the next thing on the list. Ours is pretty much the same as Daniel Tiger’s: bathtime, pj’s, snack, brush teeth, go to sleep. (We have this book as well.)
[+] A consistent schedule: This goes along with the routine. Everything happens at pretty much the same time every night, making it easy when I have choir practice or something in the evening and my parents are doing bedtime with Daniel.
[+] Melatonin: We give it to the kidlet along with his evening meds (Clonidine). It’s very easily found in the vitamin section of your local supermarket or drug store.
Daniel does still have nights where he’s wakeful but these three things tend to work pretty well for us.
Inspiration pr0n is this:
Inspiration pr0n is all the posts of disabled people doing normal things like working out, and then “what’s your excuse” or praising them for the ordinary. It’s also the high school kids who vote the girl with Down Syndrome homecoming queen so that they can go viral on social media, but they would never have lunch or hang out with her in real life. It’s the objectification (that’s why it’s pr0n) or disabled people to make other people feel good about themselves.
It’s not wrong to be inspired by someone being resilient or someone doing something pretty amazing. The problem comes when you’re using someone else’s situation to make yourself look more tolerant, more humble, or more giving. People are not made to be used.
You also do not get to make comments about how much someone else’s life must stink. They might have a disability of some kind but that does not mean that their life is automatically horrible.
Halloween costumes. I couldn’t find kitty ears and a tail anywhere else so I finally broke down and went to a Spirit Halloween superstore. I was able to find a tail and ears without a problem as well as a black hooded cape for Daniel. I’m trying to figure out what he should be. Ideas?
Checking out the feline angle. I think this is further proof that cats exist in a liquid state.
Some Halloween grammar Nazi fun. I think this is a lovely illustration of a common grammar mistake.
Almost done. I only have 5 posts left for the Write 31 Days challenge. I’m glad I was able to go all month this year (I had to bail after 17 days last year because of my unplanned move to northern California) though I’m also kind of glad that it’s ending because it’s been hard at times to find time to write on days when I have a fair amount of homework.
If you haven’t read any of the entries, go here.
Update on the mutant death virus. I’m definitely better than last week but all the crud in my chest has exacerbated my asthma enough that I went to see the doctor this morning to see if we could formulate a plan to keep me out of the ER. She took one listen to my lungs and announced that she would be putting me on a Z-pack and that I would need to be taking my inhaler every 4-6 hours for the next week. (Yay inhaler shakes!)
Prayers for healing of this mutant death virus would be appreciated. Please and thank you!
More adventures with my “pretty notebook”. Various people commented that I needed psychiatric help when they saw how detailed and colorful my Chapter 4 outline was for my Accounting class. Well… it paid off for me because I had to miss class last Thursday due to illness but had no problems doing the homework because I had drawn all of the necessary diagrams in my notebook. š I also managed to put together an Excel worksheet for three of the problems with formulas that could be copied across multiple columns. #winning
Double rainbows. The storms we had on Tuesday and Wednesday brought some amazingly brilliant double rainbows. It’s been fabulous. š
For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.