Sensitive

I mentioned that we now know more about Eli's eating habits. It has only taken 13 months or so, but we are starting to figure the little guy out. We have seen an early intervention specialist three times so far and have learned that Eli is dealing with some sensory issues, mostly in his mouth. As I described and demonstrated feeding times with Eli to our specialist, she seemed confident that was what was really going on. Basically, his mouth causes his body to react to food the way our ears cause our body to react to fingernails down a black board... it wigs him out. In the 8 months we have been trying to feed him he has come to find that a few foods are "safe" and will always prefer those over anything else. This would be why for the last two months his diet consisted entirely of Cheerios, bread, rice cereal, and oatmeal. We had been doing better for awhile, but apparently overwhelmed him and he regressed back to his safety zone. Our job now is to desensitize him so that he can handle the food in his mouth long enough to swallow it. As I mentioned, this involves a lot of playing with his food.

Unfortunately, this is working...

I am happy to report that he is now eating almost any flavor of baby food and usually any type of dry cracker-esque item that is given to him. What we are working on now is what I call the "slimy" category. Any type of solid food with moisture in it stands little chance of entering his mouth. And if he is a little distracted and I can sneak it in there, it stands absolutely No chance of staying. Sadly, this is a large category. We are talking about melons, berries, beans, peas, cooked carrots, pasta, pizza, and everything else you can think of that has a moist look or feel. He won't even touch it with his hands. So we are working on that.

However, some of this also helps to explain why he would scream the second anyone tried to hold him until he was back in either mom or dad's arms. (Sidenote: this has gotten a LOT better in the last couple months as well.) But I knew this was unusual considering it started around 1 month old, and I wasn't buying the idea that I wasn't "passing him around enough." In his sensitive little world, he had figured out that we were safe, and everyone else just wigged him out.

Basically, Kurt and I were the cheerios. You all were the watermelon.

(Hey, at least I didn't call you slimy...)