Small Victories

Friday Sept 24, 2010

We finished with small victory today! Like I said in my pervious post, I took Parker on a date. Just him and I hung out for 3 hours and it was great! We went to Barns and Noble and looked at 6 different kid cookbooks. I really wish I would have recorded some of our fun moments sitting in the cafe flipping through searching for a recipe he would want to try! It was comical to say the least! Just picture Parker sitting there talking with his cute little voice saying to me, "mommy I don't like any of this stuff" or "mommy this is silly" or "mommy I have a great idea lets just make pizza tonight". I really thought we were going to leave there with nothing! But then finally the last cookbook was a Halloween cookbook and when he saw the a croissant wrapped around a hotdog which looked like mummy! He laughed and said, "I'll try that mommy" So I tried to talk to him about picking out a vegetable for a side item and he wanted nothing to do with that. So I told him I'll let you pick but mommy is going to make corn on the cob and candy carrots (cooked carrots) tonight and all you have to do is try one of them.

So we went to the store and got all the stuff to make dinner, which wasn't a lot! While we were at the store I let him pick out a hot wheels car and said that if he ate his dinner tonight we would let him have it but it had to stay in the closet at home until after dinner. He was so excited!!! Now let me clear this up. I normal don't think it's good to reward for eating but let's remember it's Friday night and the boy hasn't eaten ANYTHING since monday at lunch (minus the cup of milk every morning and 5 baby carrots and water) So I am at the point right now where I just want food in is belly and if it takes giving him a hot wheels car then I'll do it! This will NOT be something we do every night or every week!!!!!

So as the day went on I prayed for that little boy so much and I had everyone I knew praying for him. Around 4:00 he came up to me and said, "mommy my belly is soooooo hungry". That was the first time all week he finally admitted he was hungry. While we are making dinner he is so excited to eat and talks non-stop. Which was so good because if you can only image he has been so tired and has had no energy so he really has been quite. Well 4:45 came and we all sit down at the table. He tells me that he will not eat his vegetables and started to get upset. We told him that if he acts that way at the table he must go upstairs. So he stopped that quickly. He ate a couple bits of the hotdog that had the croissant on it then started to only eat the croissant. Finally he got down to half of the hotdog left and decides he don't like it anymore. At this point I almost just got up from the table and went to the other room to cry. But I knew I had to be strong and just keep pushing through. Jeff coached him into eating the hot dog. It was so hard to watch, it was all a mental battle for him. Finally after an 30 mins he got it all down! So the rule of the night was if he ate his hotdog he would get bfast but he had to try a veggie to get dessert! This is where the REALLY hard part came in to play! Jeff sat with Parker for over an hour after dinner was over with. Trying to get the boy to eat an itty bitty bite of carrot. When I say itty bitty bite i mean the size of a pill!! COME ON BEAR IT'S REALLY NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL! Jeff said this was a prime example of how he wants to be in control. It's not like we were having him eat something crazy or a huge amount. He literally could have put it in his mouth and swallowed his without even tasting it. At this point Jeff is desperate, again let remind you all what we have gone through ALL week! So he get a very small piece of cookie put it in Parkers right hand and the fork with the carrot on it in his left hand. Jeff said at this point it was so hard to watch. Parker was struggling so much!!! Finally Jeff helped him and he ate it!!!!

So we all packed up in the van and Parker wanted to go across the bridge to get ice cream! We celebrated our very small victory with Dairy Bar milk shakes!

Saturday Sept 26 2010

Woke up and was so excited for Parker to have breakfast! We decided to go with oatmeal because that is one of Parker's favorite bfast foods. But we told him we had to make it different since we are trying new things! So I added banana and a couple chocolate chips to the top. We were leaving for Huber Orchard and Winery today so I really was hoping he would eat it! He put it up to his mouth and could smell the banana so he stopped! He threw the really bad fit and I thought I was going to lose my mind. I wanted to just start screaming. Jeff could tell I was getting really weak and soon came down stairs to help out and took over. Finally we decided if he didn't want it because it had banana in it that was fine but we would have to make a different kind of oatmeal so we did just butter and sucanat (it's a type of sugar) but no cinnamon because that is how he normally eats it! He still wouldn't try it! We headed to Huber Orchard and told him he got no snacks and at lunch time he could pick out something new to try. Once lunch time came he picked out a hot dog. Now was that something really new, no because he had it last night it was just a croissant instead of a bun but o well! He had never had it in that form so in his mind it was new! He ate it and like it! He wanted to try fries as a side and wouldn't touch them! Since he ate his hotdog I let him a roll. As the day went on he didn't have anything until we went to the winery and there was a bunch of goodies and ice cream around. So he got to try a couple sample of some different types of breads. Which in the past we wouldn't normally try samples! Then everyone got ice cream. I really didn't want him to have any but he did try something at lunch and sometimes you just need to let it go....... so I let him pick out something new. He normally would only get vanilla or chocolate and wouldn't even try other people ice cream so he picked out cookies and cream and liked it! Again small victories!!!

On our way home we stopped at Subway. We got the kids a turkey, pepperoni and cheese sandwich. O did he throw a fit!!! I have to admit I lost my cool in the van!!! I think he was soooo hungry because he played all day (6 hours at the orchard and winery) and was sooo tired that he just lost his cool too and threw a horrible fit. He cried and cried and cried. Didn't help that Reed was upset also so we had a van full of crying kids!!!!!! Tomorrow is a new day and I keep telling myself we have a LONG road ahead of us!!!!