Snowflake Tortillas

Big Brother and I made snowflake tortillas today.  He's too young to use scissors, so I cut the tortillas with kitchen scissors so that they looked like snowflakes.  Big Brother loved "painting" melted butter on the snowflakes with our pastry brush.  He helped me fill a shaker with cinnamon and sugar and then sprinkled the mixture on top of the snowflakes.  The recipe says to bake them for 5 minutes, but I baked them for 10 minutes to make sure they were really crispy as Big Brother loves crunchy foods.  He was somewhat concerned that the snowflake was "hot" (warm), but tried a mouse bite.  We'll make them again this week and see if he is more willing to try them since we've already made them once.  Click here for the recipe.

Meal Planning & Grocery Shopping as an Educational Tool

I saw this article about getting your kids involved with meal planning and grocery shopping and thought I'd share.
Click here to read the article.

Fruit Smoothie Pops

This is a great way to get kids to eat fruit!  The smoothie pops are so sweet and yummy, kids don’t realize that they’re healthy!  You can use any kind of fruit and juice that you like.  Here's what we do...

Put a splash of juice (apple, orange, pineapple), several large spoonfuls of plain yogurt, and unfrozen fruit (ripe banana, pineapple, etc) into the blender.  Add frozen fruit of your choice (strawberries, peaches, raspberries, blueberries, etc) to the blender.  Blend until smooth.  Pour into popsicle molds*, freeze, and enjoy!

*Big Brother loves Elmo.  I found small disposable Sesame Street cups, poured the excess smoothie mixture in the cups, put the cups in a Ziploc bag, and froze them.  He loves to use a spoon and eat right out of the cup. - It's similar to eating ice cream.

Let's Eat: Funny Food Songs

Big Brother and Baby Sister love to watch this Sesame Street video.  Grover is a waiter at a restaurant called, Planet Storybook, where he tries to encourage a particularly picky patron to eat healthy food.  Cookie Monster, Telly, and other fun characters sing silly songs about trying new foods, like "Cereal Girl" (a spoof of "Material Girl").  Parents and kids will both enjoy this video.

All Aboard the Shape Train!

I was reading a book of activities for preschoolers and got the inspiration for making a shape train with food.  Big Brother loves trains, so I knew he'd be interested in this project.  You could build just about anything with the shapes (tractors, buildings, cars, flowers, trees, etc). 

I assembled and/or cut various foods up into shapes.  We used a couple of foods he likes to eat (Townhouse crackers and uncooked spaghetti) and some foods he won't try (swiss cheese, cheddar cheese, zucchini, and carrots).  I pointed to and named each of the foods and started to construct the engine.  To my surprise, he jumped in right away (after taking a big bite out of a cracker!) and was quite eager to continue building the train (he usually completely avoids foods on his plate if he's not comfortable with them).

Big Brother constructing his train.

Our finished train.

We didn't use all of the following foods for today's activity, but here are some additional ideas to get you started. 

• Triangles - cheese, bread, crackers, chips, pineapples
• Squares & Rectangles - crackers, graham crackers, celery sticks, bell peppers
• Circles - Cheerios, Oreos, zucchini, chips, bananas, cooked pasta wheels, Melba toast crackers, carrots, apples
• Train car connectors - licorice strips, spaghetti noodles, shredded cheese
• Smoke - marshmallows, blueberries
• Coal - crushed Oreos

What are some other foods that could be used for this activity?  If you do this activity with your child, please share your experience!

Felt Food

I love this idea of making felt food for children to play with.  While Big Brother won't eat pizza (there are too many foods mixed together) or a sandwich, he loves to play with pretend food.  This would be a great way to educate him about the different foods used to make a pizza or sandwiches.  Once he's comfortable with the pretend food, hopefully he'll feel comfortable helping me make the real thing!

Felt Pizza - click here for the tutorial.
Felt Sandwich - click here for the tutorial.

Sensory Texture Boards

I like this idea of making Sensory Texture Boards.  Click here for details.

Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Reindeer

I found this blog today and love the idea!  Big Brother loves chocolate, so this would be a great project to make with him. Click here for instructions.

Pint Sized Chefs

One great way to help kids learn about food is to get them involved in planning a meal, shopping for ingredients, and preparing the meal.  While Big Brother is too small to use a knife or the stove, he can help with meal preparation in other ways.  For example, he puts silverware and napkins on the table and he washes vegetables and fruit.  Washing vegetables and fruit provides a low-pressure way for him to come into contact with food - food that if presented on his plate, he wouldn't be willing to touch.

I recently bought the book, C is for Cooking: Recipes from the Street (Sesame Street that is).  Big Brother loves Elmo and Cookie Monster and he is very excited to have his very own cookbook.  I looked through the book prior to giving it to him to get an idea of which dishes he might like.  Then Big Brother and I looked through the book together and he chose several recipes he wanted to make.

Today we made Rosita's Honey Pear Crisp.  (The recipe contains cinnamon, a spice that he really likes, so we thought this would be a good recipe to try.)  Big Brother washed the pears.  He watched while I peeled the pears and we talked about how the outside skin is greenish-yellow and smooth, but the flesh is white and slippery.  He helped make the topping (he loves to stir), "paint" the lemon juice on the pears with a pastry brush, and sprinkle the topping over the cut pears in the baking dish. 

We ate the pear crisp after supper.  He enjoyed eating the crunchy "crisp" part of the dessert and explored the pear by poking it with his finger.  Baby Sister on the other hand, heartily ate the pear (she loves fruit), but left the crisp on her plate.  :)

Kid-Friendly Recipes
The following resources contain good kid-friendly recipes.




























http://www.weelicious.com

Big Brother's Food Chart

I created the following food chart to use when Big Brother tries new foods.  We try new foods during snack time (trying new foods during a meal is too hectic!).  We write the name of the food in one of the columns at the top of the chart and then Big Brother puts a star sticker in each square as he accomplishes that goal with the food.  This chart is a great motivator for him because he loves earning stars (including the tractor picture also made the chart a hit because he loves tractors!).

Feel free to use this chart or make your own.  To download this chart, click on the chart below for a larger image.  Right-click on the image, click Save Image As, save it to your computer, and print.

Great (FREE!) Booklet About Pediatric Feeding Issues

I discovered this booklet published by Gerber during my initial research on pediatric feeding issues.  This booklet provides information about normal development, as well as signs of a feeding disorder (see below).  It also provides common reasons why children have feeding difficulties and how you can get help.  Click here to download the booklet.

Early Signs of a Feeding Disorder (my son exhibited 5 out of the 6 signs)

1. Inability to transition to baby food purees by 10 months (oral-motor/sensory)
2. Inability to accept table foods by 12 months (oral-motor/sensory)
3. Inability to transition from breast/bottle by 16 months (lack of proper exposure/oral motor)
4. Inability to wean off baby foods by 16 months (oral-motor/sensory)
5. Avoidance of food groups of specific textures or food groups (sensory)
6. Parents report that the child is difficult for anyone to feed and meals are a battle zone (any combination of the above)

Play with Your Food!

"Play with your food!"  That's not a phrase you hear most parents use, but that's exactly what needs to happen...especially for kids with feeding difficulties.  I know this concept is difficult for parents.  I'm a Type A neat-freak and the last thing I want is Nutella and peanut butter smeared all over the table and chair!  However, kids need to play with their food so they can learn about it before they try to eat it.  Trying food means:  looking at it, touching it, smelling it, licking it, putting it into the mouth, and finally chewing and swallowing it.

Playing with Pasta
We eat a lot of pasta at our house.  Little Sister loves spaghetti, but Big Brother doesn’t want anything to do with cooked pasta (he’ll eat dry pasta because it’s crunchy).  One of our goals is to food chain with Big Brother so that he will accept pasta.  We’ve just started working our plan and here’s what we've done thus far.

Big Brother loves to read and point out letters he knows in books, so I thought I’d make “trying” pasta into a game.  Before we even started, I stressed that I didn’t expect him to eat the pasta…we were just going to have fun and play with it.  First, I poured some uncooked pasta in my hand and showed it to him.  I explained that it was letters – just like in his books.  Then I put the pasta into boiling water and cooked it.  I drained the pasta, ran some cold water over it so it was just warm, and put some on his plate.  He was hesitant to touch it.  I showed him how to look for various letters that he knew and he got excited about playing our new game.  He pushed several letters aside with one finger to locate one of his favorite letters.  Success!  (He’d never touched pasta with his fingers before.)  He quickly became tired of the game and wanted to wipe the food off hands, so we stopped.

A few weeks later...Big Brother is learning about shapes and loves shape sorting games so I cooked up pasta of various shapes (mini-ziti we called "pipes," fiori” we called “wheels," and orzo we called "rice"), cooled them and put them all mixed up in a bowl.  I told him that I didn’t expect him to eat it and that we were just going to play with it.  I gave Big Brother three empty bowls so he could sort the pasta shapes.  At first he didn’t want to touch the pasta with his hands, so he dumped it from one bowl to another.  I then put some of the cooked pasta into a Ziploc bag so he could feel it without having to actually touch it with his hands.  He had a lot of fun squishing the pasta in the bag.  He had spilled some pasta on his place mat and after a while I asked if he could help me clean up the mess and put the pasta back in the bowls (he loves to help).  He was quite enthusiastic about helping mommy with this task and I praised him for being such a good helper.  He played with the pasta for a few more minutes and said he was done, so we stopped.  Success again!

Notes
Each time we played with the pasta:

• We didn't play with it during mealtime.  I told him that we were just going to play with the pasta and that he didn't have to eat it.  Because it was a game and he knew I wasn’t trying to pressure him to eat it, he was more willing to participate.
• He had a wet washcloth on his place mat.  He is much more comfortable touching things if he knows that he can quickly wipe food off his hands.
• I tied his food therapy in with things that Big Brother is currently learning and likes to do.  As a result, he was more interested in participating.
• I kept my expectations in check and showed respect for him.  I didn’t pressure him to eat the pasta, made sure that he had the things he needed (a wet washcloth) to feel like he could safely participate, and didn’t push him to keep going after he said he was done.
• I offered lots of praise.  Everyone loves to receive encouraging words for a job well done!

Books about Pediatric Feeding Issues

I'm currently reading a couple of books about pediatric feeding issues.  I'll share some of the ideas I'd like to implement in Big Brother's at-home feeding therapy in a future blog post.

Here are the books I'm reading.
Pre-Feeding Skills, by Suzanne Evans Morris, P.D., CCC-SLP & Marsha Dunn Klein, M.Ed., OTR/L - This book is geared towards medical professionals, but I think it's a good book for parents to read as well.  I skimmed much of this book due to its technical nature. 














Just Take a Bite!, by Lori Ernsperger & Tania Stegen-Hanson - This book is geared toward parents and educators and provides practical ideas for incorporating food therapy into your everyday life.

Food Neophobia Story on Nightline

A friend recently shared an ABC Nightline episode with me.  (Click here to view the video.)  Nightline follows a young girl who is an extremely picky eater.  As I watched the video, I thought, “This is my son.”  It broke my heart to think about how his feeding issues will impact his life as he grows older…he may miss out on things like attending birthday parties, going to summer camp, and eating at a restaurant with his girlfriend because he’s afraid he won’t be able to eat any of the food that’s being served. 

Watching this video made me more determined than ever to help him overcome his feeding issues.  I know that he will likely struggle with food his entire life, but I want to do everything I can to help him minimize the impact his feeding issues will have on his life in the future.

Our Struggle with Pediatric Feeding Issues

Since our son was born we tried to do all of the “right” things, including nursing him and making homemade organic baby food for him to eat.  However, as his feeding therapists explained, even if you try to do all of the “right” things, it’s no guarantee that your child won’t have struggles. 

Big Brother has always been very sensitive to the sight and texture of his food.  He never transitioned from stage 2 baby food (smooth in texture) to stage 3 baby food (chunky in texture), let alone table food, and had extremely strong reactions when he tried to eat chunkier foods.  When my husband and I would try to get him to eat chunky foods (pressuring him to eat foods doesn’t work by the way), he would gag and vomit - everywhere - so much so that we'd have to end the family meal...one of us would give him a bath, while the other cleaned the kitchen.  Over the course of time, he significantly narrowed the number of foods he would eat. 

At each of Big Brother's checkups, I’d voice my concerns to his doctor, but he'd just chalk it up to our son being a "picky eater" and that he “just doesn’t like” the foods that we would try to feed him, which was pretty much everything!  By the time Big Brother was 19 months old he had limited himself to only eating wheat-free banana muffins, Beefsteak light rye toast with butter, Mott’s applesauce, and Yoplait strawberry yogurt.  I knew there was a problem, I just didn’t know what. 

I did some research online, read a few books (see below), and found a feeding therapy team in the area, but we needed a referral from his doctor to go.  Armed with the research, I finally convinced his doctor that our son wasn’t “just picky.”  Our doctor provided a referral for Big Brother to be evaluated by a feeding therapy team.  A couple of notes:

• I encourage you to press your doctor if you feel he/she is downplaying an issue that concerns you; after all, you know your child better than the doctor – you are with your child every day and the doctor periodically sees your child for only a few minutes.
• Our doctor is a good physician and a very likeable person, which is why we still see him.  However, Big Brother’s feeding therapists explained that our doctor’s response was a typical one since physicians often aren’t familiar with pediatric feeding disorders.

In December 2009, a pediatric occupational therapist, pediatric speech therapist, and behavioral psychologist evaluated Big Brother.  After speaking with us and observing him eat, they determined that he would benefit from oral sensory motor feeding therapy.  (He also underwent a modified barium swallow study after which they concluded that he didn’t have any physical problems that were contributing to his feeding issues.)  For kids with sensory issues, eating isn't fun and can be quite scary.  Kids with sensory issues protect themselves by sticking with foods they feel safe eating.  In Big Brother's case, he will only eat crunchy dry foods and foods with a smooth consistency.  (This article, Everything is a Grasshopper, does a great job of explaining what eating is like for kids with sensory issues.)

We attended food therapy every other week for four months.  The therapists were pleased with his progress and made recommendations for continuing his therapy at home.  We periodically keep them apprised of Big Brother’s progress via email and they provide us with additional recommendations to continue his therapy.  While Big Brother has increased the number of foods he’ll accept, his food repertoire is still very limited compared with other children.  It is difficult to travel and go to a restaurant with him because he is very particular about what food he will eat. 

The therapists advised that Big Brother’s feeding issues will be an ongoing struggle for us and will likely continue for years to come as there is no “quick fix.”  I pray that since we recognized the issue so early in his life we can help him to view food in a positive way.

Some Books to Get Started:

Food Chaining: The Proven 6-Step Plan to Stop Picky Eating, Solve Feeding Problems, and Expand Your Child’s Diet, by Cheri Fraker, Dr. Mark Fishbein, Sibyl Cox, Laura Walbert does a great job of comparing and contrasting picky eaters vs. problem eaters so you can determine if there is in fact an issue with your child.  It also explains what to expect during food therapy sessions and introduces the concept of "Food Chaining."
















The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder, by Carol Kranowitz and Lucy Jane Miller explains sensory processing disorder and provides activities you can do with your child to help him learn about his environment.

Why Everything's a Grasshopper?

Welcome to Everything's a Grasshopper!  I'm the mom of two toddlers. - My daughter is 1 1/2 years old and loves food.  She's adventurous and will eat anything you put in front of her.  My 2 1/2 year old son on the other hand is an extremely picky eater.  He has limited himself to eating only a few foods and is very reluctant to have new food on his plate, let alone to touch or eat it.  After an unsuccessful search for an online support system for parents of extremely picky eaters and learning of other moms whose children are also struggling with food, I decided to create a blog of my own.

You may be wondering why this blog is called, "Everything's a Grasshopper."  The name was inspired by an article I read on Marsha Dunn Klein's website entitled, "Everything is a Grasshopper."  This article opened my eyes to what must be going through my son's mind as a new food is presented to him.  In this article she recounts a trip to Mexico where her host family served grasshoppers for dinner.  As you might imagine, she didn't immediately pop one in her mouth and start chewing!  Rather, she explored this new "food" by looking at it, observing her host family eat it, smelling it, poking at it with her finger, and finally taking a small bite.  Our kids also need the freedom to explore new foods without pressure to, "Just take a bite!".  Click here to read her article.

I plan to periodically update the blog with information on books or articles that I've found to be helpful, links to recipes for picky eaters, updates on techniques that have or haven't worked for us, and ideas submitted by other parents of picky eaters.  Note that I'm not a health care professional, just a mom who loves her two kids and wants to help them live happy and healthy lives.  I'm eager to help others by sharing what I've learned and also learn from your experiences as well!

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I just read this article by Cheri Fraker and thought I'd share.  :)
http://www.wellsphere.com/children-s-health-article/how-to-do-food-chaining-therapy-everything-is-a-grasshopper-marsha-dunn-klein/957505