Itsy, Bitsy, Baby Steps!

When you have a child with serious health issues and also severe developmental delays, life is all about baby steps. Sometimes these baby steps are itsy, bitsy, but they are huge for them. Our latest isty, bitsy baby step was that Jared ate a half of a cheerio yesterday. Now this might not seem to extraordinary, but it is a fabulous step for him. His OT was here yesterday and he brought a big container of cheerios for Jared to play with. We are just hoping to get him to touch food right now. He discovered that a cheerio broken in half looks like a moon (Jared is fascinated with moons and stars right now). We spent quite a while making moons and playing with our tongues. I then proceeded to put a moon on his tongue and he immediately pulled it back into his mouth. He was quite surprised to find the cheerio there and it scared him. He kept trying to figure out how to get it out of his mouth and the whole time he was crying and scared but it eventually dissolved. This doesn't sound to successful but he didn't gag on it! Anytime we have ever put anything in his mouth he would gag, but he didn't this time. He didn't like it and didn't know what to do with it but he didn't gag on it. The OT and I were high fiveing and felt like the session had been a complete success. Like I said, itsy, bitsy, baby steps are small but they are at least headed in the right direction!