Revelations

About four weeks ago Devon and I started seeing an occupational therapist. It is something I have been meaning to do with him for nearly two years, but for one reason or another have delayed actually doing so. One reason has been that within the confines of our bizarre home it is more than cool to be a little off center. The Manor is headquarters to a few deeply weird characters so a bit of eccentricity is no big whoop. But true in my heart, in the one small corner where honesty actually reigns, I have long known there is a situation to tackle.
And tackle it we have. The first few visits were definitely downers. I spend my days with “normal” children at the preschool where I now teach. I see them eat. Food. With textures. And variety. Over the summer things had gotten so bad in Devon’s diet that I had resorted to Pediasure just to make sure he had some sort of intake. After a couple of weeks of that he spent all of August eating only organic vanilla yogurt and whole, organic raw milk. Ew. Not much of anything but at least pure in origin. Now, after four visits, we are experiencing some success. Devon still refuses to eat any fruits or vegetables that haven’t been pureed to the point of oblivion, but he is eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, rolled flat to the thickness of a cracker, and tomato soup. Maybe not much in the big picture, but e-freaking-normous in my world. We have also discovered that part of his problem is that he has an extremely sensitive gag reflex. Where most of us start to gag if something is inserted in to our throats, Devon gets all gaggy by the time any sort of solid food reaches his first molar. That is still in the hard palette area of the mouth. So every time he eats something solid he starts to feel as though he is choking. This sheds quite a bit of light on why he looks at fruits, veggies and meats with complete terror. He is not just being an enormous pain in my ass, he has a true reason to worry. So now my mission, and I have no choice but to accept it, is to stimulate the hell out of Devon’s mouth. Electric toothbrushes, spoons with textured bottoms, new food introductions (all of which have been met with disastrous reactions as of yet), chew toys shaped like alphabet letters designed to help him overcome his gagging…. I am not sure where the time in each day will come to accommodate it all. Maybe he will have to give up any hopes of clean underwear or socks. Nixing the laundry thing would help make more time.