Every time I go shopping with the kids I HAVE to buy Jason a "laughing cow cheese". This has been for the past 8 months I would say. Jason calls it "cow moo" and always in Spar he shouts "cow moo" and I always buy him one :-). Knowing that he is asking for "food" whether he eats it or not, I get great pleasure of buying "cow moo" for him. He always loves to open it and take the stickers off the cheese triangles. Never eats them, mommy always ends up eating them and growing :-). Anyway on Monday he was asking for "cow moo" before therapy and we had run out (mommy blushing). I brought him a box as usual and he excitedly fetched them from the fridge jumping up and down. I carried on with what I was doing in the kitchen and when I looked at Jason he was EATING one. He had taken the wrapper off and was actually eating it!! I wanted to do cartwheels and tears filled my eyes and I had a lump in my throat. My little man was eating a cheese :-). On Tuesday again he asked for a "cow moo" which I handed him the box and again he ate another triangle. Of course being me I raced and checked the calories. The kj is 168 per cheese triangle!! Yeah!! My son is eating!!
On Saturday at my folks we had a braai and some friends of ours popped over for a visit. Jason was very excited to see the other kids coming over to play. Jason followed Tiago like a shadow and was so enjoying him. When Tiago had some juice, Tiago's mom poured Jason some as well and unbelievably he drank some!!!
So we are seeing some eating and drinking happening which is fantastic. He is still eating his onion but this week having seeing him help himself to two cheeses and following Tiago with the drinking was really fantastic to see. Our little boy was eating and drinking. I definitely think Nicole (his baby sister) is helping a lot. He watches her eating and I think he sees the attention she gets from eating as well. To Bruce and myself having an eating child (Nicole), WOW it's amazing. Something so natural and so normal for her is something so odd and unusual for us to see and I think Jason sees this as well. He sees the competition. When Nicole grabs his "cow moo" cheeses and chomps them even with the wrapper on he gets mad.
Jason's speech is fantastic, we are hearing and noticing so many new words every day. We are really proud of him.
His weight I am a bit worried about. He is looking SO skinny and so pale. The diarrhea he had last week didn't help and he has lost a bit of weight there. The other thing is no matter what I try, it just doesn't work. All the high calorie formulas, added powders like duocal or calojoule, they just make him violently ill and give him terrible diarrhea. Today I opened the tin of duocal (which is about R500 for the tin) and I am not lying, I gave it with his pediasure. One scoop and not even 2 minutes later he had terrible diarrhoea. What went in came straight back out. It's like fighting a losing battle! BUT this is one battle that I will not give up!
My little boy is doing so well. I am SO proud of him. He is my hero. Not a day goes by that I don't thank God for the amazing little boy he loaned to us. Jason just has the most amazing fighting spirit. He doesn't let anything get him down. He can be as sick as a dog yet he manages to get up and smile every day. He has such a fight in him. With everything he goes through in his life he always comes bouncing back. It's great hearing his speech improve every day and most of all it's great seeing him chomp a triangle of cheese. Eating to him is the most unnatural thing, eating makes him feel sick. BUT he is trying. He tries his best and that is all I ask of him. I am extremely proud of my little man. He is such an example of such a fighting spirit and someone who never gives up and never lets life's difficulties get to him. I look up to my son, he is my true hero.