Velveeta cheese: my new best friend

enjoying his Nuk-brush therapy

The last few weeks have been a bit of trial for me, as I have tried repeatedly to do the oral therapies as prescribed by the speech therapist. Almost all of the therapies require me putting my finger in Ben's mouth. However, he takes great offense at any attempt to do this, so we've been at a bit of a stand-still. I think he may be especially phobic of unwanted things going in his mouth because for months we had to force-feed him his reflux meds every night and he HATED that (we've since switched to dissolving tablets, which is much better).

Another of the speech therapist's requirements we've struggled with is going back to spoon-feeding Ben purees. (Since he only gained an ounce in the whole month of August, the pediatrician and the therapist were a little concerned he wasn't getting enough calories.) I guess Ben just really wants to do feeding all by himself, though, because whenever I try to spoon feed him, he closes his mouth up really tight and bats the spoon so that the puree goes flying.... again.... and again.

For the first two weeks after going to see the speech therapist I tried a variety of different sweet treats to get him to open up (for both the spoon-feeding, and trying to get him to let me put my finger in his mouth). I tried strawberry jam, grape jelly, honey, and two kinds of fruity yogurt. I would even smear a bit of these sweet foods on his resisting lips so that he'd have to get a little taste. I might as well have been offering him mud and rolly-pollies from the way he acts-- no wait, he LIKES mud and rolly-pollies!

my busy boy

Then it occurred to me that perhaps Ben just doesn't really like sweet things. (Oh, the horror!!) So yesterday I put some melted velteeta cheese on a spoon and he opened up like a hungry baby bird! Although I can't fathom not being tempted by jam and other delicious sweets, I am so grateful that I've found something that will help me finally do his therapy.

Another happy break-through I've had for getting more calories into my boy involves a further bit of grossness. A few days ago I had the idea of putting a few spoonfuls of our "grown-up" meals into the Baby Bullet blender and getting it into a chunky (and pretty disgusting) rough paste. He LOVES this, and he can actually eat pretty much all of what we give him (instead of 95 % of it ending up in his bib and lap like before). So that has been a wonderful break-through, even if his meals now look like regurgitated yuck.

splashing in his first mud puddle (while Mama's back was turned)

The therapist also told me to start weaning Ben off of baby bottles and onto sippy-cups. That is easier said than done! Ben is more than happy to be given a no-drip sippy cup filled with formula and carry it around the house. He'll stop every now and then to try to take a drink, but he hasn't mastered the concept of tilting one's head back when drinking a beverage, so mostly he just gets a lot of air and eventually tosses the sippy cup down somewhere. He also has a toddler cup with a straw that he loves to drink from. Sadly, most of the reason he loves his straw cup so much is that when drinking from it, he doesn't make a tight seal with his lips so most of the liquid gushes back out around the straw and down his front. Some days when I give him his straw cup filled with water during a meal, I have to totally change his whole outfit and diaper later, because so much water has leaked out of his mouth as he drank. I tried filling the straw cup with cold water (as the therapist suggested), but it didn't make any difference.  I do not want to fill the straw cup with milk, because that cleanup would be super messy!

our first true, satisfactory nap together!

So instead of trying to immediately switch Ben off of bottles, Clay suggested we put handles on the baby bottles we have and teach him to first hold his bottle all by himself while he lays next to us as we feed him. Once he's comfortable laying next to us holding his own bottle, maybe we can work towards him sitting up (& tilting his head back) while drinking from the bottle on his own. Who knew this whole process was going to be so complicated!!?

Oh, and we have the swallow test this coming Wednesday at the hospital. I hope hope hope that he will consent to eating the barium dipped food, or it will be a bust!

Luckily I have been able to actually complete two other things the therapist instructed me to do: getting him to chew on a "chewy tube" and "Nuk-brush", which both special tools used to strengthen the jaw muscles.  The other success is pressing on his chin to help him learn to say "Mama" (which is a fabulous success!).

In fact, I guess one might count "Mama" as Ben's first word (he says it more like "Muwm"). However, right after I started working with him to say "Mama," he also started saying "uck" for "duck" and "baba" for "ball." So really I'm counting all three as official "first words." I'm SO thankful he's making progress on his speech now. It's like all of a sudden a switch was turned on inside of him and now he's starting to get it. A little while ago I could hear Clay telling Ben he was putting on his "socks and shoes", and Ben responded saying "shsh". Things are so much more interesting and fun when it feels like he can start responding.

taking an alligator ride with Auden

Speaking of ducks, his morning I took Ben to Brackenridge Park to see the ducks for the first time. I was so impressed with him because he knew what they were immediately even though none of them were yellow (like most of the ducks in his books)! He kept saying "uck, uck" and cried when I decided it was time to leave (he was getting too close to the edge of the riverbank for my taste.) In the little video below I have to prompt him to say "duck" for the camera, but when we first arrived he said it with no prompting at all.

Another nice change in our house is that now Benito is a "free range" toddler. Previously, he was fenced-in in living room and dining room areas by baby gates. After some tricky toddler-proofing in the rest of the house (if there ever is truly anything safe from a toddler) he's now free to roam around, and only blocked from going into the kitchen and the bathroom. The bathroom is where the kitty litter box is and the cat's food and water is on the floor of the kitchen. Once he's learned to follow directions a bit better I'll try letting him into those rooms also. He really really enjoys having the run of the house and now he happily follows me from room to room, instead of crying at the baby gate every time I'd run to the other room to get something. Hurray for small things that make big differences!

In other positive news, I think I have finally kicked my pneumonia. Today is the first day I haven't taken any sort of medication. Yeah!

seeing the ducks at Brackenridge Park

Ben was the center of the party at Chick-fil-A last night

enjoying an indoor fast-food play area for the first time