OT

Somehow, I also missed blogging about our OT session last week. So, I'll just do BOTH of our OT sessions that we've had together here. Last week... Mitsy came out and wanted to have lunch with us. She wanted to see what kinds of eating issues he has and what games and tricks will work with him to get him to eat something he either doesn't want or is new to him. Well, the short answer is NOTHING works. We already know that... so she said she'd get some information together and bring me some help next week. She played playdoh with him and just got to know him better for this week. Her tidbit of advice for now is to just leave him alone, have him sit with us at dinner, give him a plate of what we're eating and just let him be. The hard part of accomplishing that this week has been that he STILL asks for his drink and we refuse to let him just have his cup because we KNOW he will drink, be satisfied, and then its a lost cause for him to even eat a bite of dinner. This week... First, she brought me a book called "Just Take a Bite." Yeah, that's how I feel most of the time. It's about challenging eaters & some ways to help us understand why they are so challenging at mealtime AND hopefully some ways to help. She advised me to read through it since she can't be here for all mealtimes. Then, it was on to the playing. He sits down in the spot where all the other therapy takes place, waiting patiently to see what new games this lady has for him. :-) She brought a bucket of McDonalds play food. We sorted through them, named them, sorted them into food categories and helped him pick out good meals. What a great idea. That's definitely a game we'll play more of. The second game was a Thomas the Train Aquadoodle. It has a little water pen that draws a track and the train follows the water track. How cool. Im not too sure what this is supposed to do - he kept picking the train up and examining the buttons. But, it was neat. If she brings it next time, I'll ask more questions. I guess it's just one more game to get him thinking about what toys do and why they do it. The third game, I was totally unprepared for. A tray, Cheerios, Whip Cream, and Straws. Hmm. This looks messy. She wanted to test him out on getting messy. We hid the cheerios in the whip cream to see if he'd dig for them. We stuck our hands in it, squished all around, ate some, sprayed it in our palms etc... After quite a bit of prompting, he started to pick out the cheerios that he could see. Then, he put one hand in. A second hand. and finally started rubbing around. He lasted a few minutes before he wanted that stuff off his hands. He did a good job and tried something NEW and MESSY today. I also secretly enjoyed having permission to play in a can of whip cream. Who never wanted to do that???