Breakfast, Peaches and Dinner

Today was an awesome day. It gave me hope and maybe or hopefully an insight of what is to come for the new year.:) For those of you that don't know CJ was born with CDH and has never eaten by mouth at least nothing that would amount to anything. He lately well I guess for some time (a few months) has been just chewing and spitting, which is really gross at the dinner table but never discouraged. For Christmas we got the kids some chore charts that lists their chores and how much money they earn per chore per day as well as penalties that would reduce their allowance. The kids were really excited about earning money that they could spend however they wanted to spend it. We also included several special family activities that they would be able to choose at the end of the week of their choice if they did not have to use any penalties (movies,games,favorite dinner that they would get to help cook etc...). We also told them that on the last weekend of every month we would take them to Toys R Us to spend their money. Well your probably wondering what this has to do with peaches or even meals! Well one of the chores CJ has is to swallow 3 bites of food a day which is quite a task for him. In doing this he will earn 25cents per day. WOW. It is working he forgets that he only has to take 3 bites and has been taking around 5. Now mind you these are bite sizes of solid foods that you might give a 9 month old baby. They are very very tiny bites but it is so exciting to finally see him swallowing something. Well today he asked me for some peaches so I cut up a slice and he ate the whole thing in about 10 minutes. Then asked for more. So I cut up another slice. And he ate that one also and asked for yet another slice. I couldn't believe it I was so excited I couldn't get to the kitchen fast enough. I asked him if he would like me to cut the pieces a little bigger and he said yes. So I nervously cut them a little larger. I guess the size would be about 1/4 of a dime so still very small. I was so proud of him. And he was so proud of himself for eating it. He ate all those pieces in about a 30 minute period without gaging or spitting. Then to finish off my day he ate 3 kernels of corn and 2 bites of a Penni noodle. YEH!!!!! Oh yeah! at breakfast he also ate 2 kix cereal balls. This is the most he has ever eaten at one time or even in a day or week or even month. He usually would just lick or chew and spit or sometimes he would just start retching at the sight or smell of the food and occasionally sip liquids so this was an absolutely huge huge day for Cj. I am so proud of him. It made me cry to see him working so hard to eat, he wants to so bad. He always asks for food and I make sure he always gets the food he asks for but he has never actually eaten what was given to him.

CJ I can't wait to see where you go next in your life and what challenges you are going to conquer on the way. I am so proud of you. I know that you will be eating soon and we will one day remove the mickey. I will always be here supporting you in whatever way you need. I am so happy that you are never afraid to voice your opinion and tell me what you want I think that at age 4 this is pretty great. Although a very ornery boy you steal my heart every day.xoxo