In some parts of Gabriel's life, he is moving forward at an incredible pace. Literally. Just this past week, he has mastered forward motion. His crawling is super energetic, filled with lots of vocalizations and funny baby faces. His back legs do this silly little bunny hop when he gets super excited. It's like he can't get there fast enough. We noticed how good he had gotten at this while we were in Leavenworth this past week. We were having dinner at the Ride Around Washington's biking camp in a big field at the middle school and Thomas got up for seconds. Gabriel got right up on all fours and tried to follow. He went a fair distance, too. Now, if you put him on the floor, he's ready to go and takes off as quick as he can. Once he's on two legs, he's going to keep us extra busy!
The eating thing. Well...I was getting discouraged. He doesn't really want us to put anything in his mouth. He will even gag at tastes he's previously liked. The vibrating pacifier or spoon still works, but not as well as it used to. And you can forget swallowing anything bigger than a fingertip-sized taste of food. But his therapist pointed out several things. If you put food on his tray, he does dip his fingers in it. And then he takes his fingers to his lips. His mouth is still closed, but the food is right there under his nose for him to smell, and he's getting a lot of input from that. This is a behavior that he wasn't doing before. He would play with his food, but it would end up in his hair or all over his hands arms, but he never brought his hands to his mouth. So, this is a Big Deal. She also succeeded in getting him to touch is tongue to his fingers. Again, it doesn't sound like much, but the ability and willingness to lick, is another Step In The Right Direction.
I think sometimes, I'm getting so goal-oriented, that I'm missing the little victories. It's nice to have someone who knows all the little steps to look for and can point them out to you, so that we know we're making actual progress. It's just v-e-r-y s-l-o-w progress. This tube is going to be part of our life for awhile.
The best news is that I contacted the Blendtec company about the possibility of a medical discount for one of their blenders. Blendtec and Vitamix both have a stellar reputation in the blended diet community for being able to handle pureeing foods down to tube consistency. I still maintain that Gabriel does better on real food, and we're hoping to get the okay this month to make the switch completely off formula. So, having the proper equipment to feed him is essential. I've been borrowing Gabriel's grandparents' Vitamix, but with a possible switch to completely real food, I would have to be there about every 2-3 days to borrow the blender, and that's hard to do. Anyway, long story short, Blendtec is making it possible for us to acquire one of their awesome blenders! Yay!
