We Love Chicken

As of Sunday, CHICKEN IS SAFE!!

We LOVE chicken!

And chicken loves Zac! He weighed in at 27.2 pounds at his Sunday morning weigh-in; not only the highest weight he’s ever achieved, but a full 1.2 pounds heavier than before we started the chicken trial.

Guess this child needs a lot of protein!

I am positively happy dancing, y’all! 

As much as I’d love to linger and bask in this latest food trial success, we have to ask the question: what next?

The obvious answer should be “purple podded pole beans”, since I’m growing them in my garden! Unfortunately, I’m just not getting the kind of yields that would provide enough beans for me and Zac for a whole year.

So we hit the farmer’s market on Saturday to see what else was in season.

Wouldn’t you know it? Those lovely cauliflower-growing folks had PURPLE PODDED POLE BEANS!

100% organic, just as if I’d grown them in my own garden.

So I bought three bags worth. This week I get to can them (and probably freeze some; I prefer frozen beans) and TODAY we start the pole bean trial for Zac!

Fingers and toes crossed…this is another tricky FPIES food. I wasn’t eating a particularly large quantity of this type of bean before his hospitalization, but green beans are notoriously high in reactions for FPIES kids. While purple podded pole beans aren’t strictly traditional “green bean”, they are a version of the classic snap bean and therefore are probably protein-related in some way.

I just really want to have a “side veggie” to serve Zac! Now that he’s got chicken, I could make a real, typical meal for him if he just had a side veggie that he could/would eat! (He eats cauliflower daily, but he’s not fond of it as a side dish. I usually have to cook it into his nuggets or something unconventional.)

Oh, I hope pole beans are safe for him!

In other news, we had a very full week. I shared how we put the “big bed” in the boys room and have the kids sleeping together at night. The very next day, at Jed’s insistence, we had to move the toddler Thomas bed back  into their room! (If you remember, we moved it OUT at his insistence, too!)

Then the boys slept together in the big bed every night last week, completely ignoring the Thomas bed…until last night. Suddenly Jed wanted to sleep in Thomas.

But don’t worry, Mama! “See? I have space next to me for Zac!” Jed informed us, as he pressed his body almost over the edge of the bed.

Right.

Turns out, I forgot to move Zac to Jed’s bed after he fell asleep, and when he woke up for his first feeding he made it known that he did NOT like sleeping alone! Flat pitched a fit when I tried to take him back into the boys big bed!

Instead he ran away from me – right into our bedroom. Oh, well. We tried. I think the boys will need some time to adjust to this change.

And obviously Zac is not good at sleeping alone. He needs his brother to snuggle with if he’s not going to be sleeping with me. 

Speaking of Jed, for a long time we’ve been wondering how to introduce the concept of ‘chores’ to him, and had decided to do a chore chart. I simply hadn’t figured out what chores I wanted him to do, or how to best make the chart a part of his life.

Thursday last week JED provided the perfect opportunity to bring the chore chart into use! He decided he really, really, REALLY wanted a toy train at the store. Instantly I told him he couldn’t have it, but suddenly I had a spark of inspiration.

“No, Jed, I’m not going to buy that for you. BUT! You can EARN that toy, if you really want it!” I told him.

He clasped it to his chest and his eyes got wide as he said “I can?!”

“Sure! When we get home, we’re going to set up a ‘chore chart’ for you. Every day, you’ll have jobs to do. If you do each job, you get a sticker. At the end of the week, if you’ve done all your chores each day, you will have earned the toy. Think you can do that?”

By the time I finished the explanation, he was literally bouncing up and down, grinning, and answered with “Yes! I can!”

Then he ran up to two groups of total strangers in the store and informed them that “I going to earn my toy train!”, which left them confused and amused, and me in giggles.

He really is totally cute sometimes. 

All the rest of the day, he nagged me to set up the chore chart for him. By that night, I had finalized his initial chores and made the chart. Before going to bed, I explained his jobs and he excitedly said he would go do them all NOW!

Um, nope, kiddo, time for bed. You start work in the morning!

So far it’s been three days of using the chore chart, and he’s done every single thing and earned every single star possible. 

I’m very proud of him, but honestly, I didn’t think he was going to do it. I’m a little surprised to think that Darrel and I are going to have to actually buy that toy this weekend!

In case anyone is interested, we started him off easy. Two of his stars are earned by brushing his teeth in the morning and before bed. The trick to that is: with NO argument or battling! He has always fought us about teeth brushing, and I’m flat-out tired of the daily battle.

So he has to brush his teeth (and let us do it, too, to make sure it’s done properly) every morning and every night WITHOUT ARGUMENT to get his sticker. He’s brushed his teeth happily and willingly for three days now, and it’s such a relief!

Same goes for hand washing. He HATES to wash his hands with soap, but with food allergies, it’s important. I’m tired of battling him. So to earn a star, he has to wash his hands before and after eating – whether a meal or a snack – without argument.

Again, three days of happy hand washing. 

Who knew it could be this easy to enlist his cooperation?

He also has to help me unload the dishwasher, make his bed in the morning (both of them!), and pick up ALL the toys in the living room and put them away before bed each night.

Little stinker fought us on the toy pick up the first night, but since then has been a dream about it!

It is so much nicer to start handing off tasks to the kidlet! I still have to supervise and sometimes help, but I love seeing this self-sufficiency grow in him.

If he actually does all these chores for a week, we’ll tweak his chore list and start adding new responsibilities slowly.

I’m very excited!

The only thing that concerns me is the fact that I linked “chores” with “rewards”. I think it was necessary to get him excited enough about the chore chart to begin with, but at some point he’s going to have to learn that not all chores get rewarded; some are just done to be a functioning part of a family.

I’m not sure how to “un-link”, when we reach that point. Any suggestions?

Friday we got to meet another FPIES family, which was very cool! But if I tell that story now, this post will turn into a novel, so come back tomorrow for the story!

How was your weekend? How did you introduce chores to your pre-schooler?