Yesterday I clicked on my facebook memories and scrolled through posts I'd written and pictures I'd posted, going as far back as nine years. I read that nine years ago, the feeding therapist Isaac had at the time, told me he probably would never be able to chew food and would have to drink all of his meals. Nine years later and she wasn't completely wrong. He can't chew food--though we did give our best effort for about a year, but he doesn't necessarily drink all of his meals--though they are all pureed, he does eat them with a spoon, so I won't count that as drinking.
Isaac's preferred food is Silk Almond milk yogurt and 8 ounces of Kate Farms formula. He would have that exact meal five times each day if I would let him. We let him have this meal two times each day and he has to have 'soup' for the rest of his meals. We started calling every meal except yogurt, 'soup', only because that's what the inpatient feeding clinic called it. Unfortunately, these 'soups' don't magically appear. I blend food (using my trusty blendtec blender) for him every day--sometimes multiple times each day if I haven't blended large enough quantities to last more than one meal.
It has only been during the last few years that Isaac has been feeding himself independently. Prior to this accomplishment of self feeding, I had to spend painful thirty minute increments trying to get Isaac to eat all of his soup. It was a situation where he could launch an Angry Bird (maybe two), and then he had to let me feed him a bite of soup. It was quite unpleasant. Then, after the meal, he was rewarded with time on his iPad. It was a horrible cycle and it has taken years and many baby steps to wean from that whole situation. I won't divulge all of those baby steps today because it would probably be horribly boring. I'm thankful that 99% of all meals these days are accomplished with little fanfare and he feeds himself with such a rapid speed in order to finish the meal as quickly as possible. Oh, and he doesn't get screen time after every meal anymore (only breakfast).
Have you ever met anyone who didn't like to eat? Who, even if you offered them the most decadent dessert they would refuse it? Me either. Until Isaac. It's hard to understand.
One of Isaac's preferred soups is what I call peanut-butter-sandwich-soup. It's exactly as it sounds: two slices of bread, a banana, two tablespoons of peanut butter, sometimes some carrots or whatever other random items I throw in the blender, and some oat milk. I made this soup for him this evening and stuck it in the fridge telling him that whenever he was hungry, his next soup would be ready for him. Usually I have to keep him on track for each meal because he eats approximately every three hours, but since this was the last meal of the day he had some leeway to choose when he wanted to eat. I sat down in the living room to read my book and about twenty minutes later I heard him come upstairs from the basement and get his soup out of the fridge. He put his soup in the microwave, turned it on, and then I heard him take it out of the microwave and blow on it, hard, many times (even though I know it wasn't hot--we heat all soups for only 30-45 seconds which is barely room temperature because he doesn't like anything too hot or too cold), and then he brought his soup into the dining room and sat down and continued blowing on it to cool it down. Meanwhile, I sat unnoticed in the living room, watching him quietly. He sat for a moment and then grabbed the towel that he uses to wipe his face (leftover habit from the feeding clinic--it must be a washcloth type of towel, not a paper napkin or paper towel), and proceeded to rapidly spoon soup into his mouth.
I observed all of this unnoticed, and I kept it that way because I wanted to take a moment to marvel at how much progress he's made in nearly eleven years (his eleventh birthday is next week). The fact that he noted his hunger, stopped playing video games, got his own soup from the fridge and heated it up on his own without asking for any help, may not seem like much, but it's absolutely amazing for him. I'm so thankful for this brief, seemingly ordinary moment.
