eating. i mean REALLY EATING

Today is the 1st day in over 2 years Lars hasn't been fed through his g-tube because he ATE ENOUGH FOOD through his MOUTH! Pardon me if I SHOUT! This is HUGE! Yep, turned the big 5 years old & decided pediasure pumped into the belly was OUT & eating was IN. Top favorite foods: coconut shrimp, buffalo chicken w/bleu cheese, and cheese puffs. Today he also ate grahm crackers with peanut butter, lots of chunks of ham & cheese, & drank a few sips of cranberry juice. He's been eating cottage cheese, too.

We owe this giant leap forward to his PCA Allie. She is the person who originally got him to eat, like back when he was little ;-). Let me explain. When Allie was I think 17 she started as a volunteer in the Infant-Toddler program at Perkins. In that program, volunteers are usually assigned to a particular child, and they stay with him/her for as long as possible. In our case, Lars' first day at Infant-Toddler was also Allie's first day. He was 5 months old. She was his 1:1 volunteer basically almost the whole time until he turned 3 & graduated to preschool.

When Allie first met Lars, he was just nursing. A week after he turned 1, he weaned himself (much to my dismay). That spring, Allie got him to start eating solid food (which he had been refusing) with chocolate pudding! For quite a while, he would only eat with her. Then he gradually spread the joy & ate with others too. In fact, he was a great eater (though not a great self-feeder) until his major pain episode / hospitalization in winter-spring of 2007. He started on the drug neurontin & while it cured his pain episodes, it also robbed him of his hunger. On 2/21/07 he surgically had a g-tube placed, and since that time has gotten almost all of his nutrition via pediasure & water pumped into his belly through the tube. Also all his meds.

Since then he's been eating a few bites here & there: sour cream, kefir & rice krispies, veggie chips, plain yogurt (nothing sweet), but nothing to write home about.

So this week, just a couple days after turning 5, Allie took him to the 99 (a restaurant), ordered him coconut shrimp & buffalo chicken with bleu cheese, and that first day he ate 4 jumbo shrimp & 2 whole chicken strips! The next day at school he had a 45 minute lunch, eating a couple more chicken strips. YEE-HAW! So far, as in the very beginning, he's eating way more with Allie than with anyone else. Andey had the boys this weekend, but she & Joa had some kind of plans, so Allie had Lars all afternoon- hence the day with no pediasure. I'm just so very excited & grateful!

I don't have a picture of the new eating craze yet, but here are Lars & Allie doing the other thing they do best: chillin.