Going on a bear hunt

Today we went on a bear hunt! We first read the book Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. Then I had the kids act out like they were going on a bear hunt, something that I would do for a storytime. Then I hid teddy graham bears around the house. Teddy graham bears are something that zaid refuses to eat. I picked out the cinnamon ones, since zaid likes cinnamon buns and cinnamon toast sticks. Earlier, that day I had taken Zaid to storytime at the library and ironically the storytime theme was bears. I told the my friend who was the librarian for the storytime that day what I was planning on doing and she gave me some dye cut bears shapes. So I was able to write #1 bear hunter on the tags and before we went on our hunt, we put on our bear tags and I gave them each a ziplock bag to put the bears that they were going to find in. Amira and Zaid just loved the hunt. After they collected all the bears. We took them back to the table and counted them. I thought that Zaid was going to be apprehensive about the bears, but after we counted them Amira asked "Can we eat them now?". Zaid also responded asking "Can we eat them?" "Go ahead I said amazed and he gobbled up one, then two ,then three. I asked Zaid "do you like them?" and he nodded his head enthusiastically. Then he said "I don't want anymore". "O.k." I said, "now we are going to make ice cream bears". So I let them pick the flavor of ice cream that they wanted. Zaid chose vanilla, I asked him if he was sure that he didn't want strawberry. Since he liked the strawberry ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. He said "no". So I scooped out the ice cream and gave them vanilla wafers for ears and chocolate chips for the eyes and nose. Always telling them what a wafer was and having them smell it beforehand. Zaid put them on his ice cream, but didn't want to eat it. I said "do you want to lick it?" and he said "o.k." and poked at the ice cream on the spoon with the tip of his tongue. He made a face like it tasted awful and said he didn't want anymore and our bear journey ended. Later on in the day when I put together snacks on the divided tray I added a few teddy bear grahams. When Zaid saw them he said "more of them?" I said "yes" from our bear hunt. He said I don't want any, so I said o.k. eat your other snacks and he was fine with that. I was happy because if he doesn't want them he usually asks that they be removed or he picks them up and throws them. But he didn't mind the teddy grahams on the tray, so I will try them again later this week and see how it goes.

Zaid ate part of a cookie today!

I can't believe it, but Zaid asked to eat a sugar cookie with orange frosting. Now, he will eat chocolate cookies sometimes, but not often. But today he asked to have one of the suger cookies that I bought from the store; it had orange frosting and sprinkles. Zaid likes things that are orange so maybe the frosting attracted him. I gave him the cookie and he asked what the sprinkles were He said he didn't like sprinkles, so Iasked him if he wanted me to take the sprinkles off. He said yes and took a bite of the cookie! Then he took another! Then he said that he was done. Then he asked for another one; a new cookie. So I gave it to him and he handed it back to me and said that he was done. The he said on his own. I liked the cookie, but I am done:)

Fuzzy Wuzzy Caterpillar

We had such a sucess today! We read the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Then we made fuzzy caterpillars using bananas, peanut butter, shredded coconut and raisins. I got this idea from the book Kid's First Cookbook by the American Cancer Society.I had both Amira and Zaid each peel a banana. Then I gave them plastic knifes and had them spread peanut butter over the bananas. Zaid kept on saying that he wanted to spread more peanut butter, till it got on his hands and he said that he was done. I told him that it was o.k. if it gets some on his hands and gave him a paper towl to wipe them. Then we proceeded to the shredded coconut. Something that is totally new to Zaid. I told them where the cocnut comes from and I put some in a bowl and had them smell it first. I said doesn't that smell good? Amira said "yes, it smells wonderful!". Zaid smelled it and smiled. I put the bowl in front of them and told them to sprinkle it on their banana to make the caterpillar look fuzzy. I expected Zaid to have a hard time with this since he had such a hard time with the cheese making a pizza. But he had no problem whatsoever, success #1! Amira, who also has some Sensory Integration disorder also, but has overcome most of it through lots of theapy when she was younger actually got upset, because some of the banana got on her hands, go figure:) We then added two raisins for eyes. Amira did hers first. Zaid put one eye on and some peanut butter got on his hands. I said that's o.k. oh look Amira's caterpiller has eyes, you need to give your caterpiller two eyes also. Zaid tried again no problem. They were both so proud of their caterpillar that they ran over to their dad to show him. I then called Zaid over and said look we have some raisins left over give them to daddy. Daddy ate one and said "Zaid and Amira have one with me and give one to mommy also, so we can eat like a family" and Zaid ate one! Success # 2. Zaid didn't want anymore after that, but he ate one which is more then we could ever have expected. So we are so happy!

Pete's a Pizza

Being a librarian I thought that I could bring some Children's books into our activities. So today I decided that we would make pizza. A perfect book for this project is Pete's a Pizza by William Steig. The book is about a boy whose parents pretend that he is a pizza that they are making. They roll him and sprinkle some paper on him for cheese, and place checkers on him for pepperoni etc. This is a perfect book for the sensory child because after reading the book who can pretend that your child is a pizza. You can have them roll on the floor and if they can tolerate it sprinkle some tissue paper on them etc. So after we read the book it was time to make our own real pizza.I already bought premade crust and had Amira and Zaid spoon on the sauce, which they like. Then I had them sprinkle on the cheese. Zaid did not like this at all. He tried it and said that he didn't want to do it, because of the way it felt on his hands, so Amira finished sprinkling on the cheese for him. Now looking back I should have had Zaid use the spoon to sprinkle on the cheese. Oh, well live and learn. Then they put on the green peppers Zaid was fine with this and also the mushrooms. Viola, Pizza! Yum!

Breakfast

In the morning when we give Zaid his breakfast we use the divided plate. Using the divided plate was suggested by Cheri Fraker a speech therapist who created the food chaining method for children with feeding disorders. It is a great idea because the different foods are not touching one another. We noticed with Zaid that he will eat more of the foods that he does like if they are separated from one another. Even when we give him french fries and tater tots we spread them around on the plate never having them pile up. So this morning I asked Zaid if he wanted a waffle or french toast sticks. He said that he wanted French toast sticks or sticks as he calls them. So I put french toast sticks, cheerios and goldfish crackers all the foods that he does eat and a few pieces of trix cereal. Now trix cereal he won't eat. As soon as he saw them he pointed to them and said I don't want those. I tried to convince him to let them stay on his plate, by telling him that he didn't have to eat them and seeing if he could name the colors. Just allowing the trix to stay on the plate would be a step forward,but it was no use he began to pick them up and throw each one, something that we have been trying to get him not to do. If he doesn't like something he throws it. In the end he just ate the cheerios. This is how most mornings go. It is very hard to convince him to eat breakfast. Probably because he has already woken up numerous times to drink pediasure in the middle of the night and he is not hungry. Alas, this is breakfast at our house:)

Zaid eats Ice Cream!

Today, Zaid licked some ice cream. Now it may not seem like much, but this is a soft, cold, sweet texture unlike the texture of foods that he normally eats. So this was a major breakthrough for us. About six months ago he use to eat ice cream if we gave him some off a spoon, then he suddenly stopped and refused it. Today, we went to Cold Stone Creamery. As I was paying for the ice cream he came running up to me and said "Mommy, get a spoon for me to eat ice cream." I brought out the ice cream and he said "I want some ice cream too in my own cup". He didn't want any of mine since mine had brownies and sprinkles in it, but his sister's was plain strawberry. He wanted some of hers. So we gave him some in his own bowl with a spoon. We fully expected him to just play with the ice cream, but he spooned some up and touched the tip of his tongue to the spoon, just eating the tiniest amount. Some got on his finger and he started to panic. Daddy just told him that's o.k. lick it off and he did! Then he began to scoop more and more and take in more amounts all licks off the spoon, never the full spoon in his mouth, but it was a major start! We are so happy! It seems that with feeding disorders, the child usually starts to eat a food that he or she initiates. Amira was the same way, she began to ask for foods. It was never the foods that we were trying to get her to eat. I didn't place the ice cream in front of Zaid and say eat it. He asked for it and he had the control to eat or lick as much as he wanted. And I hope that this is the start of the beginning of more foods to come.

Fruit UFOs

Our cooking project for today was Fruit UFOs. Zaid did not want to do any cooking project at all. So after a lot of pleading and telling him that we have our own cooking show (This blog) I convinced him to make the fruit UFOs. I wanted to do something different, not using peanut butter. The Fruit UFOs are simple, just oranges cut in half, any type of berries or grapes and toothpicks. This project was really simple and a piece of cake for Amira who is 5 years old. Zaid needed help with the toohpicks. But he loved putting the grapes on the sticks and sticking them in the orange.

Silly Sandwich Faces.

Today, Amira and Zaid made silly faces on bread. We did this by simply having them spread peanut butter on toasted bread. Taking pieces of banana and puting them on the bread for the eyes and using raisins to create the mouth and nose. Amira had a blast doing this. Zaid found it more difficult, because occasionally some peanut butter would get on his fingers. But we just reassured him that he could wipe his hands off on a paper towel. He really liked putting the raisins on the bread. Did not want to try to taste anything, but that is o.k. I had them smell the peanut butter and just touching the peanut butter and some mushy banana pieces was a hurdle for Zaid.