Update from yesterday's oral motor appointment

So, yesterday we went to KKI in the morning for an oral motor appointment.  I was frustrated getting there because the kids were a pain getting out the door, and then I hit several red lights on the way.  Add several stupid drivers and pedestrians walking/driving in front of my car, and we were late.  It was in a different building, just one block over, but the entrance wasn't where I thought it was, so that threw me off.  I also hadn't explained it to Sarah as well as I thought I had, so I had to deal with a whining, teary Sarah too.  She saw the building where we normally have appointments, and kept telling me to go there.  Anyway, despite the rough trip, we managed to get there in enough time to still get our appointment.  Barely, but I guess what matters in the end is that we still got our appointment.

It's a good thing, too, because Sarah did GREAT! We were asked to bring five foods that we'd decided would be a good idea at Sarah's follow-up appointment to try and see if we can up the texture of her meals.  Now, we are not yet changing the texture of her meals because her speech pathologist needs to discuss how our appointment went with behavioral psych, but I'm optimistic that there will be a change soon.  Anyway, we brought french fries (this kind, perfect for an appointment because they were microwavable), cheese (Kraft singles), cucumber slices, canned carrot slices, and a banana.  I also brought ranch dressing because Sarah LOVES to dip diced cucumber into ranch dressing.  She ate quite a few pieces of diced cucumber at my Mother's Day lunch at Outback this past Sunday and did very well with it. She chewed them well and didn't gag.

Anyway, so we spent a lot of time helping Sarah put the foods on her teeth, reminding her to chew them at least five times as it's still a habit of hers to swallow things whole, etc.  Her speech pathologist and I took turns helping Sarah properly place the foods in her mouth.  We had a few minor gagging incidents, but no vomiting at all.  She spit once or twice, and a few times the food fell out of her mouth because she moved her tongue wrong.  Overall, though, she did awesome!  She chewed for probably half an hour and didn't seem to tire.  She also seemed to really enjoy the food.

The recommendation is one snack per day of regular textured foods.  We're obviously not talking sourdough pretzels, or nachos, or peanut brittle (she's allergic anyway), but foods like the ones we brought.  We are to continue the oral motor exercises at least three times per week with the oral motor tools.  Once her meals are about half regular textured foods, we can stop using them.  I can handle that for sure.

As far as meals are going, it's still kind of touch and go.  Abby in Wonderland became a tad less motivating for her, so we changed DVD's again.  I got a few at the library, and oddly enough, she's hooked on this one.  It's awfully cute and has a lot of cute Cookie Monster videos, including "A Cookie is a Sometimes Food."  I find it pretty funny myself.  Anyway, she's lately declared war on oatmeal.  The problem started with me getting a generic brand.  This stuff is definitely thicker than what she's used to eating.  She'd been handling it okay, but I guess our latest box of it must not be going so well.  Add to it that she was pretty annoyed on Sunday that Daddy was feeding so Mommy could have a break on Mother's Day, and it wasn't pretty.  She had gagging issues with it Monday and Tuesday too.  So, I said to heck with it and bought the brand name.  Really, the savings isn't worth it if she really doesn't like it.  I'm picking my battles here.  Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to be stricter with her to show her she's going to have to suck it up and deal.  She gave me a rough time this morning.  She wanted me to heat it up more in the microwave.  I'd been doing that with the other stuff, thinking that may have been the issue.  I gave in today (stupid and off protocol, I know), but I won't do that again as it didn't improve her behavior.  Then, it was her usual ridiculousness of refusing to feed it to herself.

On the bright side, though, we do seem to have gotten back some foods that were giving me a fight.  Green beans were causing an argument, and now she's doing fine with them.  Peaches were 50/50, and now she almost always eats them without fighting me.  Beef stew goes very well too.  I did a taste session on fork-mashed cheeseburger.  She did okay, but I don't feel comfortable putting it in a meal yet.  I did one on lasagna, and I feel that way about the lasagna too.  We've done a couple with creamed corn, and she's doing okay with it, but I think we need a couple more sessions before I feel confident enough to put it in a meal.

Oh, and for those keeping track, I'm STILL waiting on the e-mail with the protocol to deal with the self-feeding issue.  Tomorrow it will have been an entire month since our clinic appointment.

In non-feeding-related news, and this is NOT for the squeamish to read, Sarah has pooped in the potty TWICE in the past week.  TWICE!!!!  Thursday, she'd been gassy for a while, and I had meant to put a diaper on her.  I didn't get to it, but I caught her in a weird squat.  I asked her if she was pooping and she said "yes."  I asked her if she wanted to try and poop in the potty, and she said "yes."  I ran her to the bathroom at top speed and noticed she had only gone the tiniest bit in her pants.  I sat her on the potty and figured we'd see what happened, but didn't hold out much hope.  We'd done this before, only to have nothing happen and then she'd go in her pants or a diaper five minutes later.  I saw she was trying, but struggling.  I remembered from training her brother, that a stool under her feet sometimes helps.  I slipped a stool under her feet to support them, and started to coach her.  I said "Push, push, push with your tush!" I'm sure anyone who doesn't have kids likely thought I'd flipped my lid, but whatever.  It WORKED, though!  She did it and was SO proud of herself.  I showed her when she was done and told her she'd done such a good job and that Mommy was so proud of her.  I cleaned her up and let her pick a prize from my stash of dollar store stuff I keep for these occasions.  Well, these and for lost teeth.

She didn't poop again until Monday night.  She got one out of four poops in the potty (I think she'd been a bit backed up and was clearing it, so I guess it's understandable), but I'll take it.  She got another prize for doing it.

I don't think we're going to push the bowel training too much until school is out, but anytime we can get her into the bathroom when she has to poop, you'd better believe we're going to do it!

Oh, and dance pictures came in.  Here they are.  I took the pics with my phone and used an app to make it look like I scanned them, so the scans could look better.

Sean

Sarah

All three of us (sorry for the blur and crappy colors here) Note: Sarah is in her tap costume here, but refused her wear her tap shoes.  Ha ha! I love her pose and expression here, though.  It's too cute!

Thing 1 and Thing 2....err...Sarah and Sean together