Faith and Friends

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If I were to ask people who know Faith what one of her favorite activities is, I am pretty sure they would all say the same thing: socializing. Faith absolutely loves people. She has been a social butterfly ever since she was little.  She has always enjoyed going to therapy because she loves meeting new people, even those in the waiting room. Doctor appointments are also great because she gets to meet new nurses. She pretty much makes friends wherever she goes!  Faith and friends blowing out birthday candles when she turned 7  During her first years in school, she easily made friends with her classmates. Sadly, though, as the kids got older and since she was limited in her mobility, these friendships faded. When we pulled her out of school altogether in order to homeschool her, the hardest part was not having any friends.  Thankfully, we lived in a building that had a community room. Faith and I would often hang out there for a change of scenery. She would sit and wa...
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The Ups and Downs of Faith and Food

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This past week, Faith did something for the first time ever at school - she ate lunch. She tried everything on her tray, which included a turkey sandwich, glazed carrots (which she ate the most of), strawberries and a few bites of a breadstick.

Because Faith still needs help eating solids, her occupational therapist had Faith and a few other girls eat lunch together in a separate room. Faith has made the comment when we feed her that "that's for babies" meaning she knows that this is how babies eat - being spoon-fed by someone else. 

Since we know she is sensitive to this, we decided not to have her join her classroom at lunch for the time-being. But the fact that she actually got to have her lunch replace one of her tube feedings at school was very exciting. The next day she got to eat one of her favorite foods - mashed potatoes and gravy.

Each day the kids at school get a choice between a chef salad, ham or turkey sandwich, and a hot meal. Each of them comes with different side dishes. We knew that one day an enchilada bake would be too much for her, so she opted for the turkey sandwich again.

Faiths loves to bake cookies - and eat them too!

While eating lunch has been a big step forward, it has not come without consequences. Faith became constipated and over the weekend on top of that, she came down with a cold. Yesterday she was not able to keep anything in her tummy and threw up throughout the day.

Now today, we are sort of back to square one with her feedings. This morning, she tolerated about 4 ounces of Pediasure diluted with water which is a good sign. Hopefully we'll be able to get her feedings back on track and then try a few more school lunches this week. 

She may not be able to eat lunch everyday if she gets constipated - for her it's just one more thing that requires the perfect balance. She is on her way though, and as she continues to eat more solids, maybe one day she will eat school lunches every day of the week without any negative consequences!

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