Chicken Nuggets.
If you know, you know.
We can’t pass a drive through, no matter where we are, without him spotting the sign and requesting the same thing. Every. Single. Time.
“Chicken nuggets, French Fries and soda?”
Don’t get me wrong – Bub eats.
He’s a bit of a carnivore; most meats go down like the temps in January. Outside of his meat faves though, David is very particular about when he eats what food – breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, all the same requests, every day. Very regimented and routine (again, if you know you know). And he is also particular on what brands/forms of his food he will even entertain enough to give you hope. Sometimes we go rogue with his supper sides and have success, but most times it’s his approved list depending on what meat we have.
Broccoli is insulting to him. Don’t even consider it.
Whether it’s the color, the shape, the texture, the smell or finally the taste – if you can get that far – new foods are usually hastily rejected. He might poke them, he might touch them to his lips, but most things he hasn’t eaten before just get picked up and put on mom’s plate.
He might give a baby carrot the side eye, and make it wait until last, but he does eat them. Sometimes.
We decided that it might be… no, it definitely would be.. beneficial to expand his nutritional intake, and not have to depend so much on vitamin supplements to make sure he’s getting everything he needs.
So we sat down with his therapy team and put together a list of foods that we’d like to experiment with, and see if we can get a wider array of foods into his diet.
It took a little goading – okay, it took bite-for-bite reinforcement from his therapist – using his favorite “marshmallow cereal” (last time, but if you know, you know) but the boy showed us today that he just needed some motivation. We found with the right motivator, almost anything can at least be negotiated.
He took down pickle, cashews, carrots and pork rinds today!
Huge win! Huge!
Though, we won’t be trying to make him eat pickles again. That much he has in common with mom.
Cheers all! Here’s to food wins!
Hurricane Heffners 