My New Best Friend - The Toothpick ....

Who would have thought?  A simple "yellow" toothpick would be my new best friend!  What is it about the toothpick?  Is it, its slender wooden body?  Or the pointy edges?  The fact that they can come in multi-colors?  Or wear foo-foo tails on one of its end?  Some even throw in a little minty scent and delicate taste!

In addition to all of those wonderfully outlined qualities of a toothpick - the real reason why the toothpick is my new best friend is that it has transformed my "I hate meals, I'm not going to eat, food is yucky and I just want to make Mommy's life difficult" little monster of a son to my son who will actually eat food.  Imagine my surprise when a simple "meal" turned into "appetizer" eaten by a simple "yellow stick" enticed and entertained my son so much that he ate a whole meal.  Yes, a whole meal!  That was two days ago and he's still eating.  That is something I have yet to see happen since my son stopped eating solids completely the last week of January 2011.

 EUREKA!

Two days ago, my son ate cheese with toothpicks.  Thought that was cool.  So then I thought, hmmm what can I serve with toothpicks?  So I went out and bought a pound of unsliced or shaven gluten free ham from the deli and began to slice it up into little bite sizes pieces and speared them all with different colored toothpicks.  Yellow so happens to be my son's favorite color so I knew he'd at least try the ham with "yellow" toothpicks.  My calculated risk paid off in large dividends.  He actually "loves" ham (or sam as he calls it) and is asking for ham (or sam) by name!  This is huge!

Tonight's dinner was a "mom's special"- gluten free peanut butter and Ghiradelli chocolate chip pancake hors d'oeuvre that included - you'll never guess! - Toothpicks with little yellow foo-foo tassels on the end.  He ate it all up as the following pictures will show ...

Now all this time we've spent at the feeding clinic doing "therapy" for the last 6 months, it took this simple little "toothpick" to transform my very stubborn and horribly behaved monster of an eater into a sweet little angel (okay, I'm exaggerating just a little here) of an eater.  This was definitely one of my best mommy moments so far!  I've gone from dreading every meal to actually feeling a bit relaxed for the first time since almost a year ago.

In one week, my child has gained a whole pound!  Yes, a whole pound.  I am now thinking that my son has realized how important "eating" is to making him feel good.  That all this time, he was malnourished from a self-imposed anorexic diet.  I think he was probably feeling the effects of "low blood sugar" and that's why he's been such a monster of a child for months.  He's a much better child to be around over the last couple of days.

My fingers are crossed that this will continue to go in the positive direction.  I know a little boy who thinks that he's getting a puppy if he'll prove to me for a while that he can eat well, cooperate with eating and of course, finally become potty trained.  That is our "deal".  That is what he is motivated and striving for - a puppy!  The toothpicks are just the "tool" to get us to his puppy!

I LOVE YOU TOOTHPICK - THANKS FOR BEING YOU!

Donovan, I love you too - thanks for finally eating!
Mommy