Today Jack went to his second appointment for feeding clinic. The therapist "Rose" laughs at how manipulative he is in getting his way. Any little fussing or whining and he's automatically taken out of the situation he's in and made happy. I call him "Master of the Universe" because he is. He's never allowed to be unhappy..for any real length of time that is. I think he started to get fussy about 2 minutes after being placed in the highchair. We tried with no success to keep him content without picking him up but that lasted maybe 2 more minutes. She asked me what I did in situations like that and I said he's just picked up. Immediately he stopped crying and started smiling at the therapist. For the rest of the session he was on my lap. That's how the first session went as well, on my lap. He doesn't enjoy sitting up for any length of time...unless it's in the exersaucer, johnny jump up, or walker...and he throws himself back when he's tired of sitting up. If you don't allow him to recline he starts throwing a fit. So this is how therapy went: Sitting up, whining, reclining, calm....sitting up, whining, reclining, calm....you get the picture! Right now the therapist is basically working on "kissing" objects and face massage. He smiles too much and his muscles don't relax enough. Our future goal is for him to have more relaxed muscles so he can get a better grib on the bottle and to start making more shapes with his mouth. Right now his basic shape is smiles! Which I love, but I guess it's not good for when you're trying to make progress eating! Makes sense. Our homework last week was to have "messy play" Which has been recommended before by his PT but never went well. I was amazingly shocked and surprised over this past week. Usually he would get the food on his hands and throw a fit. He actually allowed the food on his hands and would suck the food off his toys that were submerged in the food! His first few mornings of messy played lasted for over 10 minutes! That's huge progress for him. He's also getting more interested in the food we're eating. He went insane over the sauce on my mac and cheese last week. I couldn't keep the spoon soaked enough for him! So all in all, I think we're finally starting to make progress with his oral aversion! Yeah Jack!!
Jack has been doing so awesome lately. From being able to roll onto his stomach (still won't lift his head) to actually eating more orally to needing less oxygen. Just to get a sense of where Jack was and where he is now, here are some before and after pics. The first picture is from one of the first times he was in his walker. He was 5 1/2 months, totally should have been able to be in his walker...considering my girls were crawling at 6 and 7 months...but he was so tiny he was totally lost in the walker and I had to help support his head. And look how worried he was! That was when any type of sitting could pretty much guarantee he was going to stop breathing. So the walker was definitely not one of his favorite things to do. The second picture is this past week. See the huge difference just in the pictures! Now, the last is a video of him this week just hanging out and doing awesome in his walker. He can sit back 
and also pull himself back to an upright sitting position as well. The walker is now one of his favorite toys to sit in and play with. 
