Joshy update

A night ago my situation with Josh came to breaking point.  I was so frusterated that he wouldn't eat.  I put a lot of pressure on the little guy.  This only led to him crying.  Which only made me feel worse.  I decided to call the Ohio chapter of the La Leche League. 
Shockingly someone was there.  And helpful.  She made me feel better about the whole situation.  Ofcourse it was nice to talk to someone who's reactions wasn't "You're still nursing him?!?!? How can you still be nursing him?" followed by "You did all of that by yourself?" Talk about feeling like the fat girl in line for a double slice of pepperoni pizza and entire chocolate cake.  I didn't realize how much that impacted the way I was feeling and the way I was reacting to the situation.  We talked for a long long time.  Her daughter happened to be there and happened to be a speech pathologist.  This was really helpful because ultimately that is who we would work with.  This kind representative just ran by her daughter the situation and got some general advice for me.  She said that his situation doesn't sound severe at all and that she would just let him make a mess with food and play in it with him as often as we eat.  Expect a mess. 

So yesterday I took this advice to heart.  He just needs to experiment with food.  First I unscrewed his sippy cup and let him put his pudgy little hand in there and get a good feel of the water.  Then I put the lid back on it.  He immediately wanted some water.  Then we played with food.  The speech pathologist suggested heavily involving Abby.  She was a more than willingly participant.  We played with crackers and cheerios and pears.  I threw cheerios up and caught them in my mouth, which pleased the crowds.  Later that day I was snacking on a cracker and Josh wanted one.  He licked it.

We had spaghetti for dinner.  I let him play with every part of spaghetti although i did not mix them together. He tasted some juice, after feeling it.  He wore a noodle hat and I put the sauce on my lips and kissed him.  He liked that.  He thought it was funny to squish the meat in his hands and to throw the brocolli.  After dinner I pulled out a loaf of bread from the oven.  He wanted a piece.  He walked around with it guming it and chewing little pieces for about an hour.  Then he wanted more water. 

I aslo talked with parma pediatrics about our horrible experience.  It turns out that the lab order was sent and that the nurse that I talked too the second time simply didn't understand how to run the computer.  The labs are in and Joshy is nutritionally sound. I was concerned that he was anemic but his numbers are better than mine.  So yay!  No more needles.  The only thing I need to figure out now is why Josh is screaming for an hour and half in the middle of the night!  In the meantime I am enjoying the lack of diahrrea and knowing that he is getting all of the nutrition he needs right now.