Thursday, August 10, 2006

Still reading...

I'm still getting used to the change in our lives since B found he can immerse himself in a book to overcome the OCD thoughts (most of the time). He has been working steadily through the "Young Jedi Knights" series, occasionally updating me as he goes along, which is great because I read these books when he was a baby & have forgotten a lot of the story. Because of the reading, B hasn't had a melt-down since Monday & I feel almost a vacuum from the lack of these intense incidents that usually pepper our days. When he's not reading B has been preferring to work on his legos & the stories he dreams up to go with them. He hasn't played on the computer for a couple of days & the only tv he's watching is in the morning before I get up. It's all very different, but it feels good & healthy for him.

B's aversion to meat is becoming more a part of daily life as well. He's been choosing good protein alternatives (a concern because he's sensitive to certain textures, tastes, & smells & rejects a lot of what he's offered). He's been taking a multivitamin with iron for a few years now, so living on beans, dairy (with lactaid tablets), & tofu should be ok (he eats fresh fruit every day & likes veggies like edamame soybeans, peas, carrots, & will eat a salad without cucumber :). B told me today while grocery shopping that the thing that sets off meltdowns at the store is going by the meat section, so we came up with a compromise. We had gotten some corn & they had a station where you could shuck the corn bfore taking it home. So I left him shucking corn while I quickly got the items that were near the meat section (cheese & bagels). It worked like a charm & he hardly ticced at all until we were almost done & checked out. Another victory! It was lovely not to be scrambling for diversions while trying to get everything on the list :)

Yesterday we had a visit from dear friends who live in Buffalo. Ros, a folk singer & composer, composed a song for us & sang it for our wedding nearly 18 years ago & her husband Tom is a brilliant former geologist who can converse on just about any topic. They are like an extra set of grandparents for B & behave accordingly, always remembering his birthday & bringing a little present when they come to visit, or have something for him when we vist them. I have known Ros for 24 years. We met when she came up to the summer camp I worked at in the early 80's to do one of the weekly programmes for the campers. A shared love of music was what started our friendship, & we always do something musical when we get together, like have a jam session with rhythm instruments or hear a newly composed song. We also love to share our local ethnic restaurants with each other, so yesterday we went for Thai. B loved the fried tofu with his rice & the mango juice. He & I folded origami balloons while we waited for the food, as we all chatted. C had decided that Tom would be a good person for B to challenge to a game of go & it turned out that he had played go many years ago but was rusty on the rules, so he & C ended up challenging B to 2 games, the first of which they won, but then B came back to win the second (!). Ros & I just caught up on things. After lunch we took home-made ice cream down to the bay & ate it with a lovely breeze coming off the water. It was so civilised. B had a nice time visiting, too, between playing go & telling Ros about school.

Today B gets to spend the afternoon with his best buddy, E. So, off to lunch & a fun afternoon!

4 Comments:

At 1:02 AM, Blogger Zilari said...

I always get really uncomfy walking by the meat counter as well -- to me it's like walking by a pile of corpses *shudder*. So B definitely has my sympathies there!

 
At 3:28 PM, Blogger The Jedi Family of Blogs said...

I am just so glad that he was able to communicate what was bothering him, so that we could come up with a creative solution! It's a big step in the right direction :)

 
At 9:23 PM, Blogger Mom to Mr. Handsome said...

Lisa,

Great idea about seperating while you go to the meat section and B to the corn. It's interesting that he will eat tofu. Does he like the firm kind? I have been a lacto-ovo-vegetarian for about 18 years now and tofu is one food that is hard to get people to try due to its appearance and texture. Was it hard to get B to try it in the first place? Gabe has some eating issues, so I was wondering if B just had interest or did it have to be introduced to him a certain way?

Glad to hear B is doing well!

Kristin

 
At 3:47 PM, Blogger The Jedi Family of Blogs said...

Hi Kristin,
B likes his tofu fried, like they do it in Thai restaurants, or floating in miso soup (usually the silken type). I'm not sure he'd eat it in any other context, though. He's funny that way about food. I used to make him fried tofu when he was a toddler, upon the advice of his pediatrician actually. I would just cube firm tofu & fry it in some butter until it was crispy on the outside. He would chase it around his highchair tray & munch it down like no tomorrow. A way of "hiding" tofu is mashing it & scrambling it into eggs & the like, but B won't eat scrambled eggs... He absolutely refuses to eat veggie burgers these days, so I may go back to frying it like when he was a baby...

 

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