So where do I even begin? Our house has been crazy the last couple of months, and in a good way :). The baby is growing like a weed(TREE), our 2 year old is busy as ever, summer vacations...makes me tired thinking about everything that has happened!
We recently had a speech evaluation done for Damien, and the SLP (Speech-Language Pathologist) has also referred us to an Occupational therepy to help Damien with some Sensory Integration issues. Thats a lot of big words in one big sentence but all in all, Damien doesn't process sensory input from his world the same way as everyone else. Certain sensory triggers like sight, smell, touch, colors, movement etc set him off because it's very overwhelming for him to try and take all in and sort out. While I think its a fairly mild "case", our main concern is his eating because he's underweight. We've always chalked it up to him being a picky eater, but the pathologist brought to my attention that everything he eats is tan/yellow/bland. Now how did I miss that in the last year?? Anywho, I can now sigh a big ol' sigh of releif that infact I don't have the world's most dramatic picky eater, and that there is something else behind it.
She informed us that it was going to take a few weeks for our insurance approval and referral to go through but prompted me to look for activities that would "gently push him outside his comfort level". This is what brings us to yogurt painting :) I played off an idea I found on an AWESOME blog called Play at Home Mom (http://playathomemom3.blogspot.com/2011/07/edible-paint.html). I didn't have all of the ingrediants I needed for that, or pudding mix, so I dug around in the kitchen and decided to just tint some vanilla yogurt. I split up one yogurt cup into four small cups, then added 1 drop of each color of food coloring to a different cup. I divided it up between the two kids and let them have at it. I figured what a good idea! He eats yogurt (though only a few of the plainer colored ones) so it was easing him into bright colored food with something he already normally eats and also gets him a little messy, perfect!
It was interesting to watch the two of them. My six month old, Mason, dove right in. He was smearing it everywhere, smacking his hands into it, eating it, rubbing it on his face, just having a grand old time. Damien on the other hand refused to touch it (normal for him) and used the different tools I got out for him to "paint" with. They both had a blast though and Damien has been begging all afternoon to do "More yots paint?" :)
We recently had a speech evaluation done for Damien, and the SLP (Speech-Language Pathologist) has also referred us to an Occupational therepy to help Damien with some Sensory Integration issues. Thats a lot of big words in one big sentence but all in all, Damien doesn't process sensory input from his world the same way as everyone else. Certain sensory triggers like sight, smell, touch, colors, movement etc set him off because it's very overwhelming for him to try and take all in and sort out. While I think its a fairly mild "case", our main concern is his eating because he's underweight. We've always chalked it up to him being a picky eater, but the pathologist brought to my attention that everything he eats is tan/yellow/bland. Now how did I miss that in the last year?? Anywho, I can now sigh a big ol' sigh of releif that infact I don't have the world's most dramatic picky eater, and that there is something else behind it.
She informed us that it was going to take a few weeks for our insurance approval and referral to go through but prompted me to look for activities that would "gently push him outside his comfort level". This is what brings us to yogurt painting :) I played off an idea I found on an AWESOME blog called Play at Home Mom (http://playathomemom3.blogspot.com/2011/07/edible-paint.html). I didn't have all of the ingrediants I needed for that, or pudding mix, so I dug around in the kitchen and decided to just tint some vanilla yogurt. I split up one yogurt cup into four small cups, then added 1 drop of each color of food coloring to a different cup. I divided it up between the two kids and let them have at it. I figured what a good idea! He eats yogurt (though only a few of the plainer colored ones) so it was easing him into bright colored food with something he already normally eats and also gets him a little messy, perfect!
It was interesting to watch the two of them. My six month old, Mason, dove right in. He was smearing it everywhere, smacking his hands into it, eating it, rubbing it on his face, just having a grand old time. Damien on the other hand refused to touch it (normal for him) and used the different tools I got out for him to "paint" with. They both had a blast though and Damien has been begging all afternoon to do "More yots paint?" :)
