A New Way to Fail a Food Trial

Last time I updated, I said that we had started a green bean trial on Zac. It looked so promising that first day (after we convinced him to try one).

Sadly, the green bean trial has flopped.

The second day of the trial, I couldn’t get him to eat any green beans at all. The third day, he only ate a few beans. The fourth day, again, he wouldn’t eat any.

The fifth day, he told us he didn’t like green beans.

I showed him how he can take a bite of something he likes along with the green bean, and then he won’t have to taste the green bean. That trick worked to get him to eat some of his beans, but the next day Darrel and I questioned whether it was worth pursuing the trial any longer.

On each day after eating green beans, his poop was mucousy and soft. Like thick, less watery diarrhea. There were no signs of visible blood, but the mucous and consistency weren’t good signs.

We asked him all week if his tummy hurt, and he kept saying “no”. I can’t help but wonder, though, if he was being literal. Maybe his tummy didn’t hurt, exactly, but maybe it felt “off”, and he doesn’t know how to explain that feeling.

Other than the diapers, there were no concerning signs. But is it worth it to pursue a trial with a food the child says he doesn’t like, and therefore will not eat?

Darrel and I decided that no, it is not. There’s no sense in pushing to make green beans safe if every time we serve them we will have to battle to get him to eat any of them!

So we gave up on the trial.

That’s a weird feeling for an FPIES mama who has pushed so hard to find foods for her child. To give up is just…well, NOT what we do in this house!

This is an entirely new way to “fail” a food trial in our world.

On the plus side, we had learned through Jed’s schooling that with stringent ‘immediate hand washing’ rules Zac can handle many arts and crafts supplies with no reactions!

Except for markers. They end up all over him, either by him drawing on himself or just residue from overenthusiastic coloring, and he was definitely having a mild reaction to something in those markers. We had to yank markers away from Jed to get Zac back to baseline before we dcould even attempt the green bean trial.

Did I  mention that markers just happen to be Jed’s FAVORITE thing to draw with! Ugh!

The other FPIES moms turned me on to DiscountSchoolSupplies.com, saying you could search for allergy-free art supplies by allergen there. I’d found that the art supplies Zac most often reacted to had soy in them, so I ordered some soy-free markers for Jed and Zac to try out. A few days after we gave up on green beans, Jed’s new markers arrived in the mail.

We decided that since I was going to work, and the green bean trial had flopped, a pseudo-marker trial was in order. His reactions to the other markers were very mild; though not something we wanted to continue, trialing these new markers was something I felt comfortable doing while I was out of town. (We don’t start food trials when I’m going to be gone.)

It’s our first non-food deliberate trial ever. So weird, but necessary, since arts and crafts supplies will now be front and center in our house from now on.

So far, so good on the new markers!

Maybe my kids will finally get to create the way normal kids do! Wouldn’t that be nice!

While all this marker and green bean trialing was going on, I also decided to accept a little reality: Zac’s hair was getting far too long.

I’ve never cut his hair, because I just couldn’t imagine cutting off all those amazing curls! Even I had to admit, though, that his hair was hanging in his eyes too much.

Fortunately, our speech therapist told me about a place called Pigtails and Crewcuts, which specializes in cutting children’s hair.

The lady that cut his hair was amazing; she asked me what I wanted done and when I said “Nothing, but I can see it needs trimming. I just don’t want to lose those awesome curls!” she said “Yeah, they’re pretty great. I think I’ll do this (explaining what she was going to do). Then he won’t look like a little girl. It’ll be more of a Surfer Dude look.”

I love that! My little Surfer Dude!

Zac handled the hair cut really well. Very little squirming at all. In the end, he looked just like he did before…only his hair wasn’t falling in his eyes and the back doesn’t “dread” up as easily as it did prior to the cut.

Zac has randomly announced “I love my hair cut” at least 6 times since it happened, so I think it was a good thing to do.

With Zac’s curly locks, I’m unfortunately not going to be unable to save money by cutting his hair at home as I do with Jed. Even worse, since Zac looks so well-groomed, Jed’s hair definitely looks like he had a homemade hair cut! So now both boys will be getting hair cuts at Pigtails and Crewcuts.

Oh well. They’re more expensive than a barber but less expensive than an adult salon, so I guess it’s worth it. Maybe I can start cutting Darrel’s hair to save some money?

The boys also had their first gymnastics class last week. We were so excited for it!

Sadly, it was horrendous. When they got there, both of my boys forgot every single thing I’ve ever  taught them about behaving in public. They didn’t stand in line, they didn’t wait their turn, they didn’t listen to the instructor…they acted like wild animals!

It was mortifying.

However, while Jed has some experience with being in a classroom, thanks to martial arts, Zac has never had the privilege.  This was an entirely new experience for him, so it’s not unbelievable that he wouldn’t behave properly. That’s why there are instructors there, right? To instruct them not only on what they are teaching, but to enforce the rules of behavior in the class, too, right?

Apparently that isn’t the belief of these instructors. Other than calling the kids (my two and another little boy who was just as ill-behaved) back over when they wandered off, they never once said anything about how the kids needed to stand in line and wait their turn with no cutting.

I spent the entire class on the sidelines calling the kids names and pointing to where they needed to go, and twice pulling them aside and informing them that they needed to straighten up, pay attention, and behave.

It didn’t work, obviously.

Darrel and I debated on taking the boys back this week. While we are interested in letting the boys learn tumbling and have fun burning off energy, a good part of why we (and I think many parents) chose to enroll them in this activity was to help them also learn how to follow rules and instruction.

If the instructors won’t make them follow any rules, is it worth it to go back?

I debated on it all week before finally deciding to give it another try. Maybe they were having an off day last week. Maybe my boys got it out of their system, so to speak, and will behave better this week.

On the way to gymnastics, I informed the kids that I had some instructions for them. I went over the rules: stay in line, wait your turn, no cutting, and do what the instructor says. I told them I didn’t care what the other kids were doing, and I didn’t care if the instructor ever reminded them of the rules. THIS was what I expected of them, and they WOULD follow MY rules or we would stop going to gymnastics.

You know what? They were a lot better this week!

All “not great” behavior came after about 45 minutes in class, when all  of the students got a little wild, not just my boys!

The instructors still didn’t do any guidance on rules, but this week one of the other mom’s came over and helped out with trying to corral the kids.

I’m still not sure if this is a good place for us to be, if it takes the mother’s who are paying for the class to help keep the class in line.

But my boys sure do love going!

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Have you ever ended a food trial simply because your child didn’t like the food? Have you ever trialed art supplies?