Because they're cute.

Off to work out!

Be Amazed.

So I have decided to do a Triathlon. You're thinking- this is nuts! Well, I have been working out really hard for about a month or more and I'm feeling great. I wanted to work toward running a 5K race, but they are all on weekends....since I work weekends, I needed to pick a weekend I knew I would already be off. I will be off the first weekend in August, so I began looking for a race that weekend...all I could find was a Triathlon and I thought, WHY NOT?!

My race is the Win for KC Triathlon on August 1st. I really believe that I can absolutely do this. This is an all women's race- First you swim 500 meters, then bike 10 miles, and run a 5k. I have chosen a training program from this site that is completely doable. There are 18 weeks until my race and my training schedule is 11 weeks, so I am starting this week and when I'm finished I'll have 7 weeks to maintain.

I have added a calendar to the sidebar of the blog in which I will be recording my daily workouts. You can click on the calendar button below it to bring up the calendar. The run/walk workouts will always include a 9 minute warmup. The next few weeks I will be doing additional workouts because I am also working out for weight loss.

This morning I went and joined North Kansas City Community Center so I have a place to swim and bike (until I get a bike). I always take Sundays off from workouts which is actually really hard for me and my obsessive nature.

This is going to be a really exciting and huge accomplishment for me. I challenege any of you to pick an exercise goal that you would have never considered before and work toward it. I challenege my SISTER to do this WITH me. My mom already said she is going to buy a ticket for her to come WATCH, but I challenge her to actually DO it. We'll see.

The Offender.

Here he is in his chair with real people food in front of him. He will sometimes poke at it but he almost never puts it near his mouth or even picks it up. He only loves to play basketball.
His sister- because she's cute.

Texture Aversion and OT

So there are lots of questions I've been getting about G's aversion to textures and solids. I thought I would update on where we are. I started offering Griffin rice cereal and baby foods at about 6 months inconsistently. It's recommended now that breast fed babies in particular are held off until 6 months unless they show signs that they need/want solid food. Well, he never did, so I started slowly. It has always been an issue. At 9 months I was still offering the same thing and a good day would be a day when we could get 2 bites in him. Any texture including rice cereal is too much for him to handle- he gags and cries until he turns blue. Every kid will eat in their own time and I didn't really worry about it knowing that eventually he'd eat. Well, I was wrong. It has been one of the most frustrating challenges of my life trying to get him to eat. There have been weeks in recent months that we haven't fed him anything except milk because it's so awful.

Anyway- some kids grow fine on milk alone, but G hasn't grown significantly since 6 months. He's proportional and grows a little, but not much at all. We have tried several things but still he doesn't catch up. Recently he had his blood tests to check and make sure there wasn't some underlying issue with him and it was determined that the reason he doesn't grow is directly tied to the calories he's taking in- as simple as that. He's absolutely healthy and even advanced in many ways except eating.

It has also become quite clear that his aversion to texture is completely behavioral. It has nothing to do with his ability to chew and swallow- he just doesn't want to. He eats all sorts of things- crayons, wood chips, sidewalk chalk, etc, just not food.

After it was determined he was healthy we were referred to Nutrition and Occupational Therapy at CMH. We had our appointment finally on Monday. When you research Texture Aversion it is EXACTLY what G has. He gags with any texture at all. He will only eat Stage 2 baby food and not very much of it. Sometimes he'll take yogurt. He performed his gagging routine beautifully for the therapist! heh. Here's the problem. The treatment for texture aversion is that you are supposed to do some texture stimulation and oral exercises- introduce new textures and things he can put into his mouth. Let him play with toys and food, etc. The problem? He doesn't have a problem with that. It's ONLY food. I'm skeptical that this is going to work as the exercises that we are challenged to do with him don't seem to be challenging him at all. The one thing that is working for us this week so far is putting him on a strict schedule.

So the plan:
We are to feed him 3 meals a day (like any other normal kid)- put real food on his tray for him to look at, play with, throw, etc. We are to use toys, food, videos, etc to distract him at this time and feed him baby food, yogurt, puddings, etc that he WILL eat and slowly work in some texture such as crumbs or thicker foods. We are NOT to offer him milk at all until after he's eaten his food. So far this week he's done fairly well. He doesn't eat a ton for breakfast and it's the biggest struggle, but he's been consistently eating a jar three times a day- HUGE for us.

We are also to start moving him to drink Carnation Inst@nt Breakfast. Sounds strange, eh? I thought so, but apparently it is nutritionally equivalent to Pediasure (which he HATES and won't touch). He won't drink the CIB pure but he'll drink it GREAT if we mix it 1/2 and 1/2 with his formula which makes me extremely happy! Lots more calories than his formula!

We are supposed to offer him lots of opportunities to explore new textures. Shaving cream, whipped cream, sand, beans, new foods, etc. He seems to like this and have a good time with it.

I am hoping that eventually he'll start to grow and consequently he'll be hungry. She did tell me that the struggle of getting him to eat like a normal child will possibly take up to 2 years. That is a scary thought to me. All I can say is- good thing I'm not pregnant! I'll keep you updated on our progress!

Not Much

Here are some pics from last week. Just playing around.
I thought he looked so cute and grown up in his polo shirt.

He likes to play with tupperware.
Almost a good picture. M pulled the cookies out of the pantry and thought they were up for grabs.
Gnawing on a graham cracker. He'll occasionally chew on some things but he never eats more than a bite.
When we went to Illinois they had an indoor pool. Very nice! We swam one afternoon. They were both a big wary, but G had a BLAST! He was totally pissed when we got out. M was ok after I coaxed her in, but she didn't venture far from her seat on the stair.

He thought "swimming" around was hilarious.
The kids are doing ok. After we got back I took G to the doctor and he had a horrid resp infection and both ears were bright red. :( He's been on some antibiotics and is starting to feel better. He's finally getting another tooth (number 5) and it's adding to his agitation. Poor guy. He can't catch a break. He got his first haircut on Friday and looks so much older. Still his cute self though. I haven't gotten a picture of it yet.
I know I have been such a bad updater lately. I'm going to try and do better this week. Tomorrow afternoon we go to Occupational Therapy with G to see if we can get him to eat. I'm pretty nervous about it. I think it's going to be a lot of really hard and frustrating work. We'll see! Wish us luck!

And the rest.

I had this cute shirt made for him. He looks so good in green!
New Cars.
Showing Grandpa his new toys. Listen, this looks suspiciously like food....I'm not so sure about it. Ok, I can touch it....but I'm not going to eat it.
Listen, I'm not kidding...I don't like it!
I love him in a hat.
Carrying around his cookie and his chalk. I each chalk, not food.
Trust me, it's good!! Try it!
Playing in the bed of the truck. So fun!
Whew- ready for bed :)

Part 1

I'm just posting a few before work here, so you'll just get some! We had a great turnout for the party. G slept the first hour or so - I couldn't get him to sleep earlier at all, so I had to put him down right at 3 when the party started. I let him sleep for an hour.
Here he is still pretty sleepy- he does love his Grandma Lana.
Starting to perk up a bit.
The kids went outside for awhile and that seemed to make him feel better.He had a good time opening presents.
HE LOVES to play ball. You can see him back there with his new basketball. His entire face lit up when he saw it. so cute.