2 favorite blogs

check out http://www.mycharmingkids.net/ and http://www.audreycaroline.blogspot.com/

these are my 2 favorite blogs and this week is a tough one. I am particularly struck with the topic they are discussing in the midst of crisis; God's sovereignty; I found this link,
http://www.gotquestions.org/free-will-sovereign.html, and thought it was helpful. I am still confused about believing in a sovereign God who has given us free will and where prayer falls into that. I believe with all of my heart that prayer can and does change things. I know baby audrey is rejoicing in heaven right now, and I also believe that baby Stellan can be healed here on earth, but as to the answers of why one mother has to grieve the loss of her baby and one get's to hold her's in her arms, I am at a loss to even comprehend why that happens. Wish I could articulate better what I am feeling, just know that I love God and believe he has a plan for all of us and that prayer is a wonderful thing.

happy and healthy

Jackson went to school today and is feeling almost like his old self! Wow, 7 days out of school...that was rough. But I am so happy to say Jackson is starting to make up for his poor appetite this past week. Today he reminded me that he will eat, can eat, and actually does enjoy it sometimes. Breakfast was 4 peices extra crunchy turkey bacon and water. Lunch at school, 2 strawberry nutragrain bars, ziplock full of morning sticks, a banana, and strawberry kiwi juice. I picked him up from school and he requested ice cream, to which I couldn't refuse him so off to Sonic we went. Now this is where he is so funny sometimes. Somedays it's Mickey D's for a hot fudge sundae and somedays it's Sonic for the kids junior candy sundae. Who would have thought he liked butterfinger? So to sonic we went and he enjoyed his candy sundae topped with crushed butterfinger with no whipped cream or cherry. Dinner option was gramma's yummy homeade pizza, to which he said no thank you (as always). Instead he opted for another banana, 2 handfuls of raisins, purple grapes, and 2 bowls of morning sticks! Top all that off with a big bowl of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream for grandpa's birthday and I thought I had a kid who was full! Nope! On the way home from grandpa's (at 8 o'clock) jackson said, "I need hot chicken from wendy's please!!" It was friday night and I was feeling a little crazy, so I gladly turned the car to wendy's. 7 hot chicken nuggets later, my 5 year old was full and happy and you would almost think this kid has the whole eating thing figured out...almost.

not just picky...

It is one thing to have a picky eater. It is another thing to have a child that is so set in eating and drinking certain things that it becomes a complication with an illness. I had to take jackson to urgent care on saturday. He had a fever, starting thursday, that would not break, started with a terrible cough and sore throat, and just kept getting worse. He layed on the cough and didn't want to do anything. He tested postive for influenza B and strep throat. So home we went with a pile of prescriptions and instructions to rest and stay hydrated. Not remembering that I had taken away his one favorite juice that he would drink,(in attempt to expand his accepted fluids) I offered him apple juice, white grape, fruit punch, etc. but with him only trying one or two sips here and there. He sipped on some coke and continued to cough away.

This morning I woke up to jackson screaming for me and crying. He was 3 steps out of his bedroom, bent over in pain. He screamed, "I can't walk!" I picked him up and tried to figure out what was going on. Mommy diagnosis, severe dehydration and muscle cramps. Insert picky eater. Jackson refused popsickles, refused, water, refused coke, refused ice cream, refused ice chips. I could not get ANYTHING into this child. Doing the math in my head, I figured it had been 26 hours or so since he had peed and knew we had a problem.

Now with any other kid, you can reason with them and explain to them the importance of needing to drink and eat. Not with jackson. I called my husband and had him try to explain to my amazing and adorable but speech impaired 5 year old what a trip to the hospital would entail for IV hydration. With gramma to the rescue to pick up coke and jackson's ONLY juice he will drink (roaring waters capris sun strawberry kiwi)I knew I had my work cut out for me.

Fast forward 4 hours to right now and the drama has subsided. Jackson drank 4oz. water, 4oz. coke, and 2 of his favorite juice pouches over 2 hours and has now gone potty. His leg cramps are improving and he is now comfy on the couch watching a thomas movie. The thought of lunch time is overwhelming to me, but we will take one baby step at a time and be grateful for the wonderful miracle that is jackson.

Not me monday!!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.



I did not secretly enjoy the fact that jackson was sick this weekend because that would just be mean. And it certainly wasn't because all he wanted me to do was "rock me" all day yesterday. It did not make me feel like a great mom to love and hold and comfort my ailing child and wish for days when he was a baby and needed me every second. That would be crazy now that he is 5 and gaining independence.

I did not thoroughly enjoy working out 6 days this week. That would just be nuts to actually enjoy sweating and looking forward to going to the gym. I would never do that.

I did not totally ignore all housework that needed to be done this weekend so I could take care of my sick child. That would be irresponsible and make monday really hard to catch up on all the housework. Nope, not me!

And I am certainly NOT sitting at this computer blogging and catching up on email while my little guys are watching a movie and I am starring at a pile of laundry. Cause that would be just CRAZY!!!

I did not seriously consider changing my hair style and adding bangs after my 5 year old asked,"mommy, what's that on your forehead??" what are you talking about jackson?, I asked. "those train tracks!" hhmmm, that's one to think about.

Food Therapy. Session 1

This morning I thought I would seize an opportunity to work with jackson with no little 3 year old little brother interuptions. I have heard wonderful things about food therapy for kids like jackson and I thought why not give it a try (since there seems to be no help in this area for this kind of therapy). Our goal: to play with food in a fun and happy way with no anxiety about being around a new food item.

I decided to experiment with graham cracker stick, since this is his favorite safe food. I bought graham cracker sandwiches with fudge inside to see if he would be willing to work with something seemingly familiar but a little different. At first I asked jackson if he would help me make a tower with the keebler cookies and he very strongly refused. Exploring a little more, he said, "they are dirty, they will hurt my hands" yes, there were some crumbs from dumping the entire box of cookies onto the counter. So I threw away any broken ones and dusted them off and he seemed relaxed enough to continue. I did have his favorite computer game also on the counter as incentive. I challenged him to who could stack the most cookies and then let him play his game for a minute in between playing with the new food.

As Jackson's comfort increased, I moved forward a little. We turned off the compter game and focused just on playing. I got out his favorite morning sticks and some small tootsie rolls (which he will eat both of) and he got really excited. I showed him that taking apart the keebler cookies, there was chocolate inside. Then asked him to open a tootsie roll. He said, look, they are the same!! He actively helped me take apart several cookies and play with them. We then squished his tootsie rolls in between his graham cracker sticks and made our own sandwiches. He responded very well to this and ate 2 tootsie rolls in the process!!

I tried to move onto goldfish and was going to have him help me with making a big rainbow on the counter but as soon as he saw them he started with, "I don't like those, I'm not hungry!" Anxiety shot up and we ended our first, and very successful food therapy session.

I would love any ideas from other mom's/therapists who have played with food for some ideas on games and foods to try with jackson!!!

sunday morning...

John is at church with Logan while I stay home with Jackson who has strep throat and the flu. I am always bummed when Iam not able to go to church and get my spirit fed, but look at what I found!!! Brent Riggs, Abby's dad is such a blessing. Here is a wonderful devotion written just for those of us who can't make it to church for whatever reason. Read and enjoy. I did!

My boys make me happy!

things are looking up!

I love the world of the internet. Log on and there you have it, a whole 'nother world at your fingertips. The blog world has been especially intriguing to me. I have "met" so many new people and love reading about the lives of people from different places. My sidebar obviously has just a few that have touched my heart and have special meaning to me. Check them out if you have a minute to browse. The blog world has also opened up a wonderful resource for me as a mom who is searching for answers for her little boy. I was so delighted when I found Cheri and her food chaining book, http://www.cheriandlaura.blogspot.com/, and have now had the most amazing day as a result of clicking on over. A comment of mine on cheri's blog was followed by another gal who is a speech and language pathologist and I noticed she also specialized in food disorders in kids. She does food therapy and was interested in the food chaining because it was something she already did in her practice. So I clicked on over,http://www.blogger.com/www.pickytots.blogspot.com, and read some great stuff that I felt would help jackson. Fast forward 10 clicks or so and 2 phone calls and before I knew it, I was talking to the very person who had commented on cheri's site. She called me!!!! We had a fabulous talk and she sent me some great resources about food therapy. I was so delighted to talk to someone who knew exactly what I was dealing with and had answers and advice for me!! God is so good. So while it is going to be a long process, I feel like we are finally making baby steps toward the goal of getting Jackson to eat and enjoy it!
It's a wonderful and small blog world and things are looking up!!!

Spring is in the air...

The sun is shinning, the birds are singing, trees are budding and my flowers are planted. AAhhhh, my favorite time of the year. Spring is here in louisiana (and so are the darn gnats), but it is now time to start the wonderful spring cleaning! I guess when everything is new and fresh and bright, that is just so inspiring that I want to scrub my house from top to bottom, clean out those closets, and get moving on all those projects that were put off all winter. So away I go to clean, organize, and just get moving! Have a wonderful day!

Serious.Life Magazine...

http://www.brentriggs.com" />


I wanted you to know about this publication I’m a part of called Serious.Life Magazine. They just published the March issue today, and I am in their Featured Blog Directory. It’s a very high quality magazine… you’ll really like it.

The magazine includes a lot of great content from bloggers you’ll appreciate, as well as great features, photos and other content. The magazine is owned and published by a family who have seven kids, three adopted and one who has Leukemia (www.riggsfamilyblog.com). The magazine gives away a bunch of ads to charities and ministries. Besides great articles on interesting people, there is a lot about family, adoption, personal finance, spiritual life, humor… all sorts of “life” topics.

Again, the subscription is FREE, and I know you’ll enjoy the magazine, so take a minute to check it out and sign up to get future issues. http://www.seriouslifemagazine.com/





I also have the riggs family blog button on my sidebar, the pray for abby square. This is an amazing family dealing with life's curve balls and they are doing it with dignity and grace and are such an inspiration to me. I hope you all take a minute to read about abby and her fight with leukemia and share in praying for the whole family.

sunday

we overslept a little with the time change and jumped up to get ready for church. jackson ate 3 peices of turkey bacon for breakfast and off we went. we always go out to eat on sunday after church and jackson does fairly well lately with certain chicken tenders and/or nuggets from various local spots. but today daddy was out of town so off to wendy's we went for a quick lunch. his usual favorite, though, got a big thumbs down. i had to bribe him with some coke to get him to eat 2 chicken nuggets. that was it. after 20 min. of trying to convince jackson it was time to eat and him refusing and saying, "i'm not hungry anyway" over and over, i stopped and let him be done. then off to swim in grandma's hot tub for an hour. that should work up an appetite, right? nope. one bite of a banana, and he was good. 2 hour nap, some coloring, back to grandma's for pizza night. well for us it is pizza night, for jackson it is just go to grandma's play with all her cool toys and books and not even look at the 5 or 6 custom, gourmet pizzas to choose from that grandma slaves over for all of us. no amount of peer pressure from 6 other cousins who are scarfing every last bite could ever persuade jackson to even take a bite. so dinner is a total bust too. (we always go over there hungry in hopes that the 2067 time he is offered pizza he will actual give it a shot) so for anyone keeping track, that is bacon, 2 nuggets, 1 bite banana and this kid just isn't interested. that is until it is now 7:15 and jackson's stomach is screaming at his brain to FEED ME! he asks for his usual safe favorite, morning sticks. (grahm cracker sticks, recently renamed). he eats 20 or so of those and the hunger pains apparently subside. he branches out and asks for a recently rejected but previous favorite, mandarin oranges. we are re-introducing these and he eats them 1 out of every 5 or so times they are offered. he scoops them with his hands and shovels them in, too impatient to use a fork. then at home, bedtime is looming, jackson asks for more bacon. 6 peices! he scarfs them and is satisfied to go to bed.
repeat X6 and you have an average day.

keeping up with life...

So for the 6 or 7 of you who check in from time to time, just thought I would let you know I am going to start using this blog as a way to keep track of some of the craziness we deal with from day to day. I will post a more extensive blog about some history with jackson a little later. But for now, I hope I don't bore you with the everyday issue I have as jackson's mom of getting him to eat. Yes, my 5 year old has a love-hate relationship with food and we are having to work on not only getting him to eat, but to enjoy mealtimes and try new foods. I have started countless notebooks of food logging and diaries and just can't keep up with the pen and paper so I am going to keep some things on here just as a reference with dates and progress to document.

Jackson was diagnosed with a moderate, expressive language delay as a 2 1/2 year old. We feared he may be demonstrating some autistic traits so we took him to the pediatrician and then got referred for evaluation with a speech and language pathologist. His testing could not be totally scored as a result of his fascination and almost obsession with the page numbers of the testing book versus what was actually on the page. We immediately sought a therapist who could help jackson. He has had 2 and 3 day a week speech therapy since then and has demonstrated remarkable progress with that therapy. Jackson is remarkable in his love of academics and his reading ability. He was spelling his name as an 18 month old and sounding out words by 2 1/2. He is reading on a kindergarten/first grade level and just turned 5 last week. All this to be said, if you ask him what he did at school or where he wants to have his birthday, he gets a confused look on his face, scratches his head, and fumbles with what words would form an appropriate answer. It does add a dose of humor to our day when he says things like, "mom, I have sick all over my tummies." He tries so hard to express what he is thinking and feeling and sometimes it just gets all jumbled up. Even now, he will introduce himself to the kids in his pre-k class like they have never seen him before when they have been in school together all year. Every morning he bounces into class with a huge smile and exclaims, "Hi! I'm jackson!" to which the kids giggle and call him silly.
All this to be said, Jackson is our unique gift from God and we face challenges just like any other family does. We are blessed that he is generally healthy (minus the egg allergy and seasonal and pet allergies). He is a happy well adjusted kid. Well, until it is time to eat that is.
After an anaphylactic allergic reaction to scrambled eggs at 11 months of age, we started restricting and then reintroducing foods for fear of more allergies. Because of this, we (john and I) feel we may have helped our son to be a "picky" eater. He generally excepted most foods that toddlers and small children do. He always loved chicken nuggets, fruit, crackers, puffs, etc. We always thought he would grow out of the general "picky eating". Then in December jackson just decided he didn't want to eat. Foods that he had always eaten and loved, he rejected. As his food choices dwindled, his anxiety at meal times increased and we observed near panic attack behavior when he was asked to come to the table. For January and February jackson chose only Wendy's chicken nuggets, strawberry nutra grain-bars, and cinnamon morning sticks. We could use coke to bribe him occasionally to eat, but that was about it. Imagine my anxiety and stress over having a child who won't eat and can't express why he is so scared to think about new foods.
I found an amazing book by a wonderful author, and I feel like I finally have some answers and a resource to try to get help for jackson. Cheri Fraker CCC-SLP, CLC and her team have written a book called Food Chaining: The Proven 6-step plan to stop picky eating, solve feeding problems, and expand your child's diet. I read it from cover to cover in one night and LOVE what she has to say. We are taking it day by day with a plan from this book and trying to get jackson on a path to healthy, happy eating!
I would love any insight, advice, or just prayer about all of this and look forward to any other resources anyone may have.
(just on a side note though, we have tried EVERYTHING under the sun to get jackson to eat. Yes, we have offered rewards, tried charts, offered the same thing until he ate it(which he never did), let him go hungry to "break him", and even gently placed food INTO his mouth in attempts to prove that if he just tasted it he would like it.) All of which did not work and some of which was very detrimental to his progress.
The food chaining technique seems to make the most sense as I feel it is a processing issue coinciding with his expressive delays. But it is going painfully slow and the baby steps he is making aren't spilling over into accepting new foods yet.

All of this to be said, I am going to keep track of accepted foods, new foods tried, food ratings, so I can be the best mom to my son.
So if you have stopped by and are bored to tears, sorry. Hopefully there will be enough logan humor to outweigh the food therapy!

Thanks to my family and friends who love and support me! I couldn't do it without you.

They make me so proud...

I have been memorizing scripture with the boys. We keep up with Beth Moore's blog and try to add a verse every week. Here is one of our bedtimes where we practice. Thought you would enjoy.

Life...

After just tucking my boys into bed and squeezing them tight, I am reminded of how precious life is, especially the miracles that are my boys. As their eyes close and they drift off to blissful dreams and peaceful sleep, I long to keep them little and safe. I can't imagine anything ever happening to them and try to protect them from any harm that I can. It is with those thoughts that my heart aches for any parent who has suffered the loss of a baby or child, or who is taking care of one that is sick. In this newly discovered blog world, my eyes have been open to how comfortable I am. I have realized that we live in a big world, with big hurts, but we serve a big God who will walk with us through whatever life brings. I have shed tears at my computer screen for baby audrey, prayed for baby stellan and read about the miracle he is. I have asked God why he had to take baby cora home so suddenly and why her parents now mourn with empty arms. I have also been left with haunting questions about why God allows little girls like Abby to struggle for her life as she fights leukemia. Oh, how short and precious life is. How fragile, yet so taken for granted. I am humbled and even ashamed of the thoughts that often cloud my life. The jealousy, materialism, and "stuff" that overshadow what this life is about. I hope that I am able to allow jesus to shine through me, that I may minister to even one hurting soul in this world. I pray that God will be near to all who hurt and that they may come to know His peace in hard times.

Please pray for Abby, and when you think of her, pray for all the hurting children in this world. Make that any hurting soul. Lord, may you reveal yourself to us and make your purpose known to all who endure suffering in this life. May you be peace to the troubled and comfort to the brokenhearted.

abby's button is now on my sidebar if you want to read her story and pray for the family.