Thursday, January 26, 2012

The "Other" Kid

I have 2 children...
One may be a little more sensory challenged than the other but this blog is certainly not dedicated solely to her.  This healthier lifestyle is for all of us.  It's not a bandwagon...it's a series of choices that will define how we live.  Okay, it kind of feels like a bandwagon right now, but some of it's becoming habit - a feeling of normalcy.  
  • Normal to read labels.  
  • Normal to politely decline the cashier's offer of a sucker at the local Dollar General (kudos to her for whisper asking me first before just offering it!).  
  • Normal to get on my knees in the same DG and quiet & soothe the sobs of  my 3 year old when I switched packages of batteries and she'd already carried around the first package for 5 minutes, thus becoming accustomed and attached to it.  
  • Normal to HAVE to go to the store tonight for batteries because the star making turtle wouldn't turn on this morning and tonight's crisis wouldn't have been worth skipping the stop.  
  • Normal to still be talking about the hole that someone had in their sock last Monday.
  • Normal to delight in everyday with my TWO God given blessings. 

Xavier is struggling with eating.  Like it's probably been about 3 months since eating was a "normal" routine for him.  We put him at the table, he gets down.  Not just at my house, but at the babysitter or grandma's house.  I'm trying not to read too much into this but it's getting old.  I'm so thankful for the nutrients he's getting in his milk but tired of dumping plate after plate of food.  He eats snacks - fruit, crackers - and breads (pancakes, etc) sometimes but has gotten either so picky or so indifferent about trying things on his plate that often he says, "I done" before his bib is ever snapped.  We've had trouble with his eating before when we started introducing baby foods...but there's really no stage to go to from solids so I'm not sure how to handle this.  He did eat for the sitter today and yesterday at least one meal...but one meal a day isn't really great.  :(  We did have him adjusted by a chiropractor on Tuesday and he put his neck & back into place so we're sure it's not his alignment causing discomfort.  If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them! 

1 comment:

Shonya said...

Hard call! As a parent, I think I would first focus on obedience. Before I stressed about the eating aspect, I think I would make sure it's not an obedience issue. Perhaps he doesn't have to eat, but you could teach him that he must obey and sit at the table when mama says so (we're having meal time and family time--you may sit and eat or sit and not eat, but you must sit with us). Then once I had trained him to obey and sit with us, I would start cutting out snacks expecting him to be hungrier at meal time and join in on this time of eating and fellowship with the family.

I've never been one to make an issue over food--I'm of the school that "a kid will eat when they get hungry enough." It depends on your perspective though, I think different people see it differently. There's my two cents! :)