small moments...

In all of the craziness of this month, I have not stopped to remember and celebrate the small moments that are little steps toward Jackson growing up and blooming into his potential.  I wanted to stop for a minute and jot down the few things that make my heart smile.  The first is that I am so proud of how Jackson handled his hospitalization.  He was such a trooper from start to finish.  Sure, there were tears and some scary times, but overall, he was a champ.  Hospitalization can be a traumatic event for a kid and he seemed to take it all in stride.  He appreciated every visitor, every prayer, and the quality time he spend with mommy 24/7 for a whole week.  After going several days without eating, he decided to try to special chicken tenders that the cafeteria workers made just for him.  He loved them! Ate them all.  Didn't even hesitate to try them.  (all this after refusing to eat any Wendy's or mickey d's we had brought to try to get him to eat something).  So every day after that, he asked for his hot, crispy, tenders and the sweet hospital cafeteria workers made them to Jackson's liking and delivered them fresh and hot (with a tilted lid as to not let the condensation from the heat make the chicken "wet"!)  It was a little triumph for a mom like me who has a kid like Jackson.  Then after rejecting a previous favorite of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream (which they had in the freezer on the peds unit), Jackson tried a Kruch ice cream bar and again, was pleasantly surprised that he had been missing out on such a wonderful treat! He ended up eating some of those for breakfast a few morning he was so enamoured.  So in the midst of a health crisis, he branched out and tried new things when I would most expect him to hold onto his "safe" foods.  Now granted, these aren't the healthiest of choices, but a step forward for us in expanding what he eats. 

Another amazing aspect of our stay at the hospital was that Jackson had to take quite a bit of medicine while he was there.  Some IV, most oral.  To a kid who is beyond the "picky eating" label, this was a source of initial anxiety for me...until we came up with a simple routing to help him cope, and BAM, he was the best medicine taker ever!!! I would plug his nose while he held a cold coke and downed the med then chugged the coke.  He did better than I probably would have.

And the new food experiences carried over to after we got home!

to be continued...