A Little Lift

Nine days ago we started a baking soda trial for Zac.

It’s the easiest food trial we have had, in regards to “how will we get him to eat it”. Simple! Just add 1 tsp. to every baked recipe he’s got!

Let me tell you, baking soda is just magic. I had convinced myself that his baked goods were perfectly fine without baking soda. And really, they are  perfectly fine without it.

They’re just so much better with it!

Zac is loving this new addition. I’m not even sure if he realizes he’s in the midst of a food trial, since, once it’s baked in, baking soda is invisible, but he’s scarfing down cakes, pancakes, muffins and cookies like they’re air!

He actually cried on Friday when I told him he’d already eaten all of his cake and I didn’t have more ready.

So far, so good. We had a VERY concerning moment last Thursday when it came to light that my Mom had fed Zac a dinner full of un-trialed ingredients by mistake, but so far he hasn’t shown much in the way of reactions.

He had a VERY rough nights sleep that Thursday night, waking every two hours or so all night long. Since then, he has also had very strange poops; it’s like his body is fighting constipation. Lots of layered output, several straight up constipation poops, and just generally not 100% diapers.

It wasn’t a full-blown reaction, by any means, but it wasn’t baseline, either.

Fortunately, by Sunday his diapers were back to perfect. Whew!

My Mom was absolutely horrified that she had made the mistake she did. I’ll admit that while I was furious at first, I soon concluded that it’s the kind of mistake that anyone could have made. I was even part of the mistake, in a way. She had asked if she could cook carrots in with the roast for Zac, and I said “No. They’ll have to be cooked in a different pan.”

I know we are currently OUT of grass-fed roasts, so there is no way any roast she was making for Zac was safe, and it never occurred to me to ask her about what roast she was planning to make for him!

Just one more reason work is messing with my ability to take care of my kiddos. I’m too tired to think half the time.

Well, the baking soda trial continued, even through the “not-quite-normal” poops. He was absolutely perfect prior to the unfortunate dinner mishap, so we were hoping these small signs were just working the offending food out of his body, and not a reaction to the baking soda.

Right now we plan to take the 3 day break starting tomorrow and resume the trial on Friday. Hopefully by the end of next week, baking soda will be a safe and I can start enjoying fluffy foods, too!

In the meantime, there has been HUGE progress with Zac’s speech. His therapist assures me that any concerns about apraxia are moot. He’s mimicking!

For the last month or so, we can ask him to say a word and 90% of the time he will attempt to repeat it back to us.

Ever since that first 3 word sentence, he is now making new sentences as often as he can. The other day he wandered into the laundry room and came out to report “Mama! More poo poo meow meow!” Which, translated, means, “Mama! The kitties pooped in the litter!”

We’re getting lots of those obscure little sentences these days. My little boy is finally starting to talk. It’s thrilling!

Not so thrilling is the fact that we now are having to consciously work with him about his tendency to immediately begin screaming and crying when something makes him mad or frustrated.

Prior to having the ability to communicate with words, the only thing he COULD do when upset was to cry. Now, though, he has lots of “big boy words” (as his speech therapist calls them) to use when he needs to communicate.

For the most part, he tries to use words. Except for when he’s angry or frustrated.

Then he reverts.

When he does that I’ll tell him “Zac! Stop that now! You don’t have to cry – use your words to tell us what is wrong!”

Every time, you can actually see the comprehension dawn on him. “Oh, yeah. That’s right. I can ask for what I want!”

And every time, he uses his words and immediately gets a positive response. (He may not get what he wants, but at least he knows we KNOW what he wants and he gets an explanation for why we can’t or won’t do something.)

That is going to take some time. We’ve wanted to stop the immediate screaming/crying fits for a while, but we didn’t know what to tell him to do instead. He had no other means to communicate, really.

Now that he does, we just have to un-learn bad habits and train him to use his big boy words – even when angry.

We’ll get there.

Oh, and another sad sign that my sweet Zac is growing up? Sometime during the last week I was gone to work, he stopped saying “Mama”.

I’m “Mommy” now.

Why that makes me sad, I don’t really know. I just know it makes me very sad.

I liked being Mama.

He stopped saying “Dada” and now says “Daddy” for Darrel, too. I don’t know that it bothers Darrel as much as it bothers me, though.

All in all, Zac is doing pretty great at the moment. Now that warm weather is here, I hope and pray he will continue to do great for a long time.

---

What’s new with your kiddos? Did you also get sad when they stopped saying “Mama”?