New Trick & Learning (Day 8 )

Part I New Trick
If you know my oldest you know she has eating issues.  She has been like this essentially since birth.  She was born at a chunky 9 pounds, yeah, big huh?  Since she was 18 months she has been wobbling between 26 and 27 pounds, so she went from being in the 95th percentile to the 25th percentile.

So food has not been a friend to her.  We have seen specialist, been in the hospital for almost a week, seen eating and play therapist, urologist, dietitians, neurologist, and the list goes on.  So I am up for any secrets out there to get her to eat more than one bite at any given meal.  I know what you are thinking "she's a toddler, of course she is picky", it goes beyond this, if she had her choice she would never eat food again, and only drink her pediasure/carnation instant breakfast that we use to supplement.  And yes, again, we have tried taking away the supplements to no avail.  She just doesn't like food in her mouth, and gags easily, on everything.

Well on to my main point of this blog entry and it  is I think I might have found a new trick to get her to eat.  This afternoon I was cleaning out the laundry room and I happened upon the goodie bags from the kids that didn't come to the girls' birthday party a few weeks ago and got the great idea to use them for treats.  So tonight I made chicken parmigiana (well, took it out of the freezer, put it in a dish, baked it for 45 minutes).  Of course she immediately said she didn't want this food, I was able to coax her into one bite.  That is usually the easy part, it is the bites after the first we have lots of problems with.  This is when I came up with this glorious plan.  Use the stuff from the goodie bags as treats for eating.  So I grab the box with everything dumped into and tell her if she eats EVERYTHING on her plate she can have a special treat from the box.  She got so excited that I had to take a picture of her face when I told her about it.

Muahahahaha

Needless to say she ate her ENTIRE plate of food tonight!  For her and us that is huge.  She ate two bites of chicken and like five large noodles, way to go my beautiful darling!  She was so proud of herself and all it took was a look at the goodie box.

The Goodie Box, not too shabby!

Part II Learning

I have recently decided to teach the kids their ABC's.  I have gone over them, my oldest knows the song and some letters, but now I really want to teach her what the letters mean and how they work.  I know she is only three, but why not put some lessons in her daily life.

This week we are learning the letter "B".  My oldest is loving it, especially since her name begins with the letter.  I am not sure ifshe truly gets the concept, but she is loving all of the art and crafts that she gets to partake in, and who knows what she is learning in the process.  Everyday she comes to me and asks when she is going to learn her letters.  Tomorrow we are going to learn the "teddy bear" song, since we learned that bear starts with B.  So wish us luck on the learning and here is Bailey with the Book she colored today!

Quite the artist!

And I leave you with a picture of our mischievous little one :

Can't you see the twinkle in her eye?