Beaver

Taking a little nappie on the drive to Beaver.

His new friend Marketta giving him a spin on the ATV.

Here's a cute picture of Matthew in Beaver with our neighbors HEALTHY kids ....
as you can see, he's not interested in eating one bit. The other kids were attacking their Mickey Mouse waffles... Sitting him at the table w/ other kids while they eat is a good thing though...
Someday he'll catch on and see how good food is!

I've got some great pics of him at the Beaver "kiddie" pool. Tanji had the great idea of taking the kids swimming ~ Taylor was a real champ and hung out with Matthew in the pool. Now that it's June and past the RSV season, we can relax a little bit about him getting anything that would affect his respiratory system. It's so nice to actually get out of the house!!!

We've been a little behind on updating blog b/c we've been going to Beaver 3 days out of the week to work on the cabin. If you want to see some recent cabin pics, click here. Mike is really working his tail off between the cabin and his new position as Sergeant.

Eating Update

Matthew has made progress with eating. As a result his "GI" doctor prescribed Megace for him (which is an appetite stimulant). Let's all hope that it will further improve his eating. We would love to get him off of the overnight feeding machine. I really hope that the Megace will work because the other stuff available is a marijuana derivative and I don't think I could handle giving that to my child!

Forced Feeding?

Though Matthew has made dramatic improvements in his eating, he still doesn't entirely grasp the concept. This morning he took a few bites of his peanut butter sandwich, then raised his shirt and tried to put the rest into his feeding port. This is a classic example of the challenges "G-tube" babies experience. From a toddler's logical standpoint, it is easier to tube feed than to bite, chew, and swallow. Hopefully his sense of taste will win him over someday.

An Eating Update

One of our favorite family shows to watch is the Food Network's "Ace of Cakes". A couple weeks ago we were inspired to make a cake with fondant after watching an episode. In between the two layers we added crushed Oreos. We handed a couple cookies to Matthew and were pleasantly surprised when he ate them! In reality, he sucked on them until they were gooey and then managed to smear the remains all over his face.

The Final Product

By the way, here is a picture of the final product.

The Food Tease

This is the kind of thing that could make Terri file a grievance for "unfair labor practices"! Here, Matthew is taunting his Mommy by placing a Biter Biscuit in his mouth but not actually eating it.

Got Food?

Here is an updated video depicting Matthew's oral aversion. Our feeding specialists have suggested several techniques to lower his resistance. In this video, Terri tries to distract Matthew with an empty Coffee Mate bottle. I promise we weren't torturing him. He wasn't in his seat for long and began to whimper immediately upon seeing the baby spoon come out. For us, this is Matthew's most frustrating challenge.

Why won't you eat?

Having a child with an oral aversion is so baffling! he resists all attempts at eating but will freely put inanimate objects like toys and household items into his mouth. We recently captured this video to illustrate our point.