Eating Issues

Hi all -
I have been away on vacation with my husband and kids. I was so sorry to have missed the first meeting this month on Nutrition, because we suffer a lot with this. Now, I say a lot, but Hudson doesn't have a feeding tube or anything like that, he just has a very narrow selection of foods - peanut butter sandwiches, cheese pizza, crackers, yogurt, chicken nuggets (sometimes) and french fries - oh and loads and loads of Carnation Instant Breakfast! Thank god for that. I think that chocolate milk can be thanked for the majority of his growth in the past year. That said, he is in the 30% for weight and 80% for height. There is not one single vegetable to be had by him, and believe me when I try to sneak them in he knows! I put yellow tomato in his quesadilla tonight and he gagged. He will chew on a nibble of carrot and then vomit it up 10 minutes later because he won't move the textured stuff back to swallow it. We have had a swallow study at the hospital to make sure there was nothing wrong there - he can swallow. Now we are involved eating therapy with an OT every other week so that we can hopefully, start desensitizing him and introduce some new foods. You name it and I have tried it (and I am still always open to suggestions), V8 Fusion, Smoothies, the Deceptively Delicious cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld, letting him cook with me so he wants to eat it, growing my own in the yard and letting him pick it. Heck, I have even starting trying to cut his sandwiches into special shapes so that he would be excited to eat it. Because I am a bit of a foodie, I am the one that struggles the most with this. I was feeling even worse about his narrow selection, until I saw the docudrama about Temple Grandin and all she ever ate was yogurt and jello. She obviously survived and did really well for herself. So, I am gaining some acceptance and see some small rays of hope when he eats half a slice of cucumber, like he did tonight! But for now we are relegated to peanut butter and chocolate milk :) Jen