Well tonight, I made a pot roast for dinner. Roasts are one of my favorite comfort foods. Jonathon is not a big fan, and Bailey has never touched one before. Well despite the opposition from those two, I make a roast anyway once every few months. Today Bailey smelled it cooking and started asking what it was. She said she wanted to taste it. At dinnertime I put a few carrots, pieces of celery, and meat on her plate. Along with a half a banana, a buttermilk biscuit, and some corn. We always give her at least one thing she is guaranteed to eat (in this case the corn and banana) and one thing we KNOW she won’t eat (the roast) and one thing that she might try (biscuit).

She started off by telling us that biscuits were for dogs, and flat-out refusing to taste it. So she kissed it goodbye and handed it to me. That was fine. Then she ate all of her corn, as expected. Then I casually picked up a carrot off my plate and commented, “I’m going to bite this little carrot in half.” She picked up her own carrot, repeated that, and ate it. Then she said, “That’s very good!” and ate the rest of her carrots. AND tried the celery- which I thought she would hate- but she said, “These green beans are good!” Since the child has honestly not eaten a green bean in at least a year I guess she didn’t even know that wasn’t what it was. We just went with it and she ate about five bites of cooked celery and took seconds on carrots!

Once she was done with that, she wanted to get down and I told her to eat her banana first. She did, and then as I was washing dishes she came into the kitchen and asked for more carrots. I’m not one to ever deny my child a vegetable (maybe because she only eats them once every six months) so we stood in the kitchen and picked cooked carrots out of the pot and ate them together.

We opened a new silicone baking pan that I got from Avon, and I showed Bailey how we can make little cakes and muffins in the shape of butterflies, ladybugs, etc. She wanted to try it, so we used a Jiffy chocolate muffin mix (the box ones that are like 2/$1). It was the perfect amount of mix and they only took 12 minutes to bake. She was so excited to watch them in the oven with the light on. After we took them out I told her they needed to cool off, and that when we got back from delivering Avon we could have a tea party with our special cakes.

We went to deliver some Avon orders and drop off new brochures to my customers. She mentioned a few times how she wanted to go home and eat one of her special cakes. She had fun deciding which one to try. She ate a ladybug one and I had a butterfly. They turned out really cute. This is my child who will NOT eat any sort of bread, muffin, or cake. She has has problems in the past with gagging on these textures and basically avoids them at all costs now. I think she was excited enough to try these, that she didn’t worry about that. She ate almost the whole ladybug and then told me she wanted to save the rest for later.

This was a super way to make a snack into something fun. I am going to have to buy more healthy mixes (like berry ones instead of chocolate!) so we can do it again soon. If you have a child who is a picky eater, this pan is an absolute miracle. They aren’t available yet on my website because they are brand new, but I can advance order them if anyone is interested. I believe they are only around $10 intro price.

Anyway, all this talking about food. If you have a child who eats normally it doesn’t make sense. If your kid is a bad eater like Bailey, well first of all HUGS to you, and second, you know why I am so happy about this small step we took today!

Riding the tram with Kenzie

Here is Bailey in front of a fence. This is significant because she loves to CLIMB these fences and has fallen into the chicken pen and the guinea pig pen multiple times because she leans over too far.

We went on the carousel after Bailey talked me into it. She has a really hard time with motion (like carousels, swings etc) because of her vestibular dysfunction. I knew she would hate it but I didn’t want to tell her no because I don’t want to limit what she thinks she’s capable of… if that makes sense… so we went on the carousel. For about a week afterwards all she would tell me was “I go up and down on the carousel. I too scary carousel!” Broke my heart. Here she is just a second before the panic set in, though:

I hate that she can’t do what her friends do. She wants to. She is so brave and such a happy little girl but I just don’t want anything to hold her back. It’s like when she runs and crashes into things on purpose… people stare and I just want to say LOOK HOW GOOD SHE IS! DON’T STARE AT HER!! She is perfect to me. And when she tells me “I too wiggly, Mommy” it always makes me smile.

But back to our day at Grant’s Farm before I get myself upset.

Emily and Ella, and Jen and Wyatt were also there with us but I didn’t get any pictures of them. I am bad about forgetting to get my camera out once I get busy!

Later that day, I put Bailey’s hair into what we call “a big girl ponytail” for the first time. (a.k.a. one ponytail in the back instead of pigtails. Not my favorite because she looks too grown up!)

I love this lion.

Have you ever seen a cuter paper plate lion? I think this is my favorite art project so far. She made this at her Messy Monsters camp last week at her O.T.’s office. They have a little sensory play summer camp that she is going to. And she’s doing GREAT might I add!

Look how messy she gets now! Can you believe this dress? I only put her in play clothes when she goes and this is why!