One of the hardest things is to watch Owen gag over the smell, texture, or taste of food. My heart aches for my little boy when I’m wanting him to try a new food and the smell alone gags him and he runs from it. You have to keep pushing forward I tell myself. He was dairy and gluten-free for years. I believe taking him off the dairy was exactly what his little body needed. The gluten I always wondered about, but I do feel like it helped as well. He used to drink tons of milk in a day and wouldn’t want anything else. The transition to almond milk was not an easy road, but within a few days of taking him off of dairy, he was pulling letters out of a box and saying what they were. I feel like it helped clear his mind enough to be able to speak. He used to lay across everything he could, pushing on his gut. Once the milk was out of his system that slowed and it seemed like it decreased more when the gluten was gone too. In the last year, I’ve opened his diet up to more foods. He still drinks almond milk, chocolate almond milk at that, it’s about the only sweet food he likes, but he is now eating a wide variety of foods that he would never have considered before. And then along come the rules. The banana is probably the easiest example of how hard it can be for Owen. A bunch of bananas is fine, pretty much anywhere for him. A single banana has caused huge meltdowns for years. However, there are some places the banana can be and he’s fine with it, like at school. One of his favorite videos to watch, and we have been watching almost every day for two years, he took a couple of months off from it, is about a child that gets a banana for a Christmas present. I have tried many ways to get Owen to accept the banana and this video is actually helping us get through it. I wrapped one up for him and gave it to him like the video. At first, he was beside himself and upset, but then he started acting out the video and laughing. The reason the banana is so important to me for him to like is that it’s one of his favorite things to eat. If I put it on a waffle he will eat every bite, saying, “yum” as he eats it. If he sees me putting the banana on his waffles that’s when the meltdown begins. I try to find ways to bend and break our rules, but stay within the guidelines of keeping Owen happy and content. I’m thankful for how far we’ve come. Today is a brand new day. Find your happiness and make today matter. Smiles to all and donut daze!
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