5 Bites!!!!!

Christmas was great. The boys had a blast and we spent all of Christmas weekend at my parents' house with my sisters and brother and their families. 18 people slept there on Saturday night and it was wonderful. And crazy. Then there was our annual New Year’s Eve Open House which had a record attendance. I pride myself on having enough food and I ran out of things this year. I make a lot of food so there must have been a lot of people here. That and we still have bags of trash in the garage so I think we can say it was a blowout.

All of the events of the past weeks meant that we neglected working with Tater on his feeding therapy. He’s been doing great in therapy with feeding himself bites and not gagging or reacting too badly so I was worried our little break would set him back. Last night was the first time in a while we attempted anything related to food going into Tater’s mouth and…

I willa shout it from da rooftops, "TATER TOOK 5 BITES!!!!"

Of vanilla pudding and he fed himself! Whatever he does at therapy doesn’t always come home with him. He did steps at therapy weeks before he would try it at home. He’s been taking bites without gagging for ages and he’s been feeding himself pudding for a couple of weeks there as well. But for whatever reason, at home he’s been very reluctant to do anything with soft textures in his mouth.

So when we sat down last night to do it, I was prepared for one of us to end up crying (usually it’s both of us-him because he’s miserable and me because I feel sooo bad for forcing him to do something he very obviously hates). And he just did it. We made a game out of it and he just did it. No tears, very happy, like nothing was ever wrong with eating.

It’s 5 bites and we still have a long road ahead of us, but 5 BITES!!! I am so dang happy.