And We're Back

Cody and I had a pretty good first weekend in Atlanta.  Saturday morning we went to the Children's Museum of Atlanta.  Cody had a lot of fun playing and exploring.  I couldn't believe how well he did with the amount of people that were there.  I can imagine that the museum is a lot more fun on a weekday morning when there aren't quite as many people there.  I struggled with wanting to put all the play food back in the right place in the "grocery store" and all the dishes away in the "Waffle House!" Maybe I'm more OCD than some may think. That afternoon and evening we hung out at our "house" and watched The Grinch.  It's the only thing I can convince Cody to watch other than the Fizzy Fun Toys channel on YouTube.  I'm going to have these videos memorized soon.  

Sunday was cold and drizzly.  Our only outing was to Walmart, so we could stock up for the week.  Unfortunately, they didn't have one of Cody's favorites- "Monkey Yogurt." That means I've yet to find a store in Atlanta that is a one-stop-shop for all of Cody's foods. I guess we're lucky that the Walmart in Cairo sells everything he likes. After our trip to Walmart, we watched Fizzy Fun Toys and The Grinch all day.  Yeah.  Fun. 

Today was back to The Marcus Center.  I decided to call it "food school" to Cody.  I was surprised he didn't complain at all about going back today.  Just for some background, The Marcus Center divides bites into groups of 5.  They have record sheets divided into groups of 5 and they set a timer that tells them when each bite should be given. If you remember, on Friday all of Cody's bites were empty spoon.  At the end of the first session ("breakfast") today they introduced strawberries one out of every 5 bites.  If I remember right it was empty spoon bite, empty spoon bite, strawberry bite, empty spoon, empty soon.  And repeat.  The therapist in the room with Cody and in the observation room both diligently record all his reactions on a checklist.  I haven't looked at the list, but his reactions could include things like gagging, spitting it out, making bad comments about the food, turning his head, etc.  Cody has done some gagging and spitting, but most of his bites were positive. While they are feeding him, he's allowed to choose a toy.  Cody's been choosing a Paw Patrol DVD every time.  By the last session ("dinner") today, Cody was having strawberries on bites 2, 3, and 5.  He was doing pretty well with swallowing, not gagging, etc.  No crying, which was GREAT!  Also at the last session today they did a "probe."  A probe is when they test him on 4 other foods to see how he would tolerate them and guide how they will proceed.  If he fails the probe, they go back to just strawberries and slowly introduce the next food.  I'm not exactly sure why the probe is necessary, but I'm not the expert here.  For his probe, Cody was given broccoli & cheese, gluten free chicken nuggets, pears, and french fries.  All of these are pureed, of course.  (I think that I mentioned in a previous post that John and I were given a list of foods to select from.  The probe foods were all things we selected from that list.  Cody has allergies to eggs, wheat, and peanuts, so that's the reason his chicken nuggets were gluten free).  Anyhow, he gagged on the broccoli & cheese and got upset, but not too bad.  The french fries were WAY worse and he cried a LOT. Same for the gluten free chicken nuggets.  The pears he took pretty easily, most likely because he recognized the flavor.  Almost all of his foods he currently eats are fruit or fruit flavored.  One of his main foods is pear applesauce.  Sasha, Cody's case manager, said he may have failed the probe, but he's not too far off.  I think that is good news for Cody's progress.

This morning I found out that Cody's goal meeting will be on February 21st at 9:30 AM.  All of Cody's "team" will be at this meeting.  We'll discuss his progress so far and talk about how they will proceed.  Maybe at that time we'll talk about how long they expect treatment to last more specifically.  I know we will talk about what we want to accomplish during treatment and I'm hoping they'll give us some idea about how far they think they can get with him.  John won't be able to attend the meeting in person, so I'm hoping they'll allow me to Facetime him in.  

One thing that has really surprised me about Cody over the last week is how stand-offish he's been to the therapists during treatment.  He goes to occupational therapy once a week in Thomasville and it didn't take him long at all to warm up to "Ms. Debbie."  The therapist-in-training who has been with Cody the most tries SOO HARD to play with Cody during treatment and he's just NOT having it.  He doesn't do anything negative really and he might give her a chuckle or smile, but it's not his typical playfulness!  She tickles him and tries to make him laugh.  From the other side of the observation mirror, I DESPERATELY want to help her out and get him to laugh! I asked Cody in the car today why he won't play with Demerea (I hope I spelled that right).  What he told me is that she won't let him out of the room.  I just asked him again why he doesn't want to play with Demerea and he said "because I just want to play with Mommy."  When we got in the car today I asked him about eating food in the room with Demerea and he got his bad expression, did something weird with his mouth, and asked for juice.  He told my dad on the phone today that he ate "yucky food" at school.  They haven't given me a lot of direction yet about how to talk about food with Cody at home, but I do know they will say not to engage in negative talk about food.  Dr. Criado will say to turn away and show no reaction.  You should not say things like "it's not yucky," "mommy likes it," etc.  Sasha said that Cody's reaction to the therapists is not unusual and it's normal to take some warming up.  She said by the end of the second week, the kids are more engaged with the therapists.  She also said that he was more conversational during one session where they played with his Paw Patrol toys rather than watch the DVD.  That made sense to me, because Cody does tend to tune everybody out when he's watching something on TV.  I sincerely hope that Cody shows everybody his cute personality soon, though.  It makes me uncomfortable to see him so stoic! 

Cody and I are already calling our condo "home."  I guess that is good, since we may as well get used to it.  But it's also kind of sad to me, because I don't want Cody to think we've permanently left our real home in Cairo.  I do wonder what he's thinking in his head about all of this.  He doesn't talk about Cairo or being at our REAL home, though he does talk about Daddy.  I am also very interested to see how the separation affects him and how it will be when we finally go back home.  I miss home a lot.  I miss John and Cole very badly.  I think everybody is planning to come up here this weekend- my parents, John, and Cole.  Not sure how all of that is going to work, but I'm sure we'll figure it out.  

After "school" today we went back to the Target where I got monkey yogurt before.  They were sold out.  Panic.  We only have 1.5 boxes left. That's 6 yogurts. He can easily eat 4 in a day. I bought more of the one kind of yogurt in a cup that Cody will eat. They only had one 6-pack left!  He will only sometimes spoon feed it himself though. So while it's more work for me, at least it is something he will eat.  I will call around the various Publix stores tomorrow to see which one has Strawberry Explosion Dannon Squeezables in stock.  I haven't been able to find it on the Publix app, but the Dannon website lists several Publix stores around here.  We get out of "school" at 3:15, so we only have a short window of time to shop without the traffic getting difficult.  Plus, I'm not too keen on driving around Atlanta searching in grocery stores with a 3.5 year old. 

There's way more I was thinking I might write about tonight, but this post is getting long and I'm exhausted (as usual).  More tomorrow.  Keep the prayers and good vibes coming.  We love hearing from all of you and knowing you're all behind us.