Something huge happened at dinner tonight. It's huge and on a whole lot of levels pure awesomeness. Do you see the picture below? Go ahead and look at it.
If you have looked long and hard at it read this and then this and maybe even this or you could read about 5 or 10 other blog posts.
That is a picture of Eden's plate tonight. For dinner tonight, we had steak with Italian dressing as a marinade, broccoli and carrots and tater tots; if you couldn't tell but that's actually not what was so awesome (even though it was super yummy!).
First awesome dinner note is that the steak was all cut up by Eden independently. We had the older girls using knives at dinner since they were really little. I've had a more difficult time with Eden for a lot of reasons. In the past dinner times have been very difficult with Eden having aggressive outbursts, and lots of unpredictable behaviors. We have had to even be careful with forks and spoons at times, but lately we have not had that issue.
She also had not been able to coordinate both hands enough to be able to actually complete the cutting motion and all the steps AND to be able to actually be patient enough to learn the little tricks adults use to make this job easier. She also is getting a lot stronger so she can actually do the whole job where 6 months ago she would have been frustrated because it was too hard to do.
Second awesome thing to notice is that she is eating a TON of different foods. We are right at our 1 year anniversary of Eden switching to a gluten free diet. She has gained more than 10 lbs this year alone (more weight than she's ever gained and I mean EVER) and grown 3 inches. She's gone up almost 4 complete sizes in her clothing. And she is starving all the time! This is the child who would only eat breakfast and nothing else for up to a week at a time. She has a snack between every meal and eats every meal completely with double the portions that we started out with.
This is my child who only had a list of 4 foods (yes only 4)she would eat 3 years ago. Who when made to sit at a dinner table would become extremely aggressive if she SAW food that was not on that 4 preferred food list (not even on her plate). 18 months ago dinner with her would average 2 hours of screaming and physically fighting us because she didn't want it and she hadn't eaten in days...
Third thing you need to notice is what I think is the most important of all. Scroll back up to the picture and now look at the picture of the plate I had from a few weeks ago. See how in this picture everything is in it's little corner? Trust me that if it's not she would have been screaming, running in circles and even may refuse to eat anything at all. She first started tonight by taking some carrot and broccoli and eating it together. I asked her to try adding something else and to my surprise she ate it! Then she did something amazing she put everything in the middle of her plate and proceeded to take a piece of everything and popping it in her mouth! I was stunned and so excited (and so was she!) and she loved it!
She still did her little dancing/stomping in a circle while she eating to help with the sensory overload. I don't think she can stop that. She does not gag as much as she has in the past, I'm hoping that one is going to go away eventually.
This is such a triumph for our family. I've almost convinced her to try things like stir-fry and other things that are mixed up together. We are only going up from here!
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