MAJOR Victory!

These, ladies and gentlemen, are pictures of my child eating cheese with pieces of turkey lunch meat in the middle. You read that right, Nolan for the first time in his life, ate meat without gagging or throwing up. He knew exactly what was happening and was a willing and even happy participant! I am sure that this is no big deal to most of you but I almost broke down in tears as he was eating. We have been in occupational therapy for the past year and a half because he has/had major texture issues and gagged on most foods and meat was his number one enemy. Through therapy and time he has really grown out of the texture issues but we have had such a hard time getting him to make peace with food. He eats basically 5 different foods and either has a PB&J or grilled cheese every single night for dinner. Today, however, we were all sitting down and eating lunch and I was sharing turkey and cheese with Elliott. Nolan said that he wanted some cheese and I told him that he would have to eat a TINY piece of turkey with it. This generally leads to weeping and gnashing of teeth- but today he kinda just gave me a face. Since I didn't have an all out protest I decided to bribe him with a M&M. Little does he know that I would have given him the whole dang bag if he would just have one bite. So he took the bite, gave me a little drama and ate the M&M. Then I told him that if he would do it again I would give him a M&M and do the happy dance. This time he ate with NO drama. I danced, he laughed and we were on. For the next 15 minutes he ate and I danced. Oh the things we do for our children!!! I am so proud of him- this was a HUGE milestone in our lives!!