Play with your food.
Yup, you heard right.  Micah’s Occupational therapist told me to encourage Micah to play with his food.  Kiss, touch, smash, cut-up, roll it around, push it through a tube, whatever he likes as long as he engages with his food.  (For those reading this that are new to our situation, we are going to OT because  he has oral sensitivities and food/texture issues.) Mind you, he doesn’t ACTUALLY have to eat it, only “engage” it.  Engaging sounds more like something we’d be doing while flying the USS Enterprise, rather than eating, but o-kay, she’s the boss.

Now, if you could have peeled back the layers of my mind & soul to see into my personality at that very moment you would have seen quite a split reaction:
The Choleric, organized, all-ducks-in-a-row part of my temperament was aghast with horror.  Covered it’s ears and ran away screaming “Noooooo!”, like someone had run her fingers across a chalkboard.  The Sanguine, happy-go-lucky part of me was totally thrilled and clapped it’s hands excitedly while expressing joyfully, “Yay! Fun with food.  Love the idea.”
Put the two together and the REAL me said out loud in response, “Oh, joy. …umm, that’ll be uhhh…fun.” “Can’t wait till we get to try this in a public setting.”
The therapist assured me that Micah won’t always think it’s okay to play with food.  He’ll eventually move on from this phase, but the choleric in me was still mulling over the messes I will have to clean up and how hard it was going to be to reinforce table-time manners, yada, yada, yada….. so, the rest of what she said sounded more like when the teacher on the Charlie Brown cartoon speaks to him.   ”whaa-whaa-whaa, whaa-whaa-whaa” was all I heard.

Pulling myself back to reality, we say our good-byes and I started to make a mental list of the foods, tableware & utensils I should get for Micah to try.
At this point, I should also mention that Micah’s new diet will now consist mainly of different types/flavors of cracker-type food.  We are going to focus on incorporating one change at a time, so we will focus on taste, not texture.  Because he already likes cracker-crunch texture I will introduce other types of flavors from foods that have a similar texture.  So, rice cakes, chips, pretzels, puffs, other crackers, etc… AND a fiber pill (my addition) to flush it all down with, so he won’t end up constipated.
Man, my kid is gonna love me for the next couple weeks! 🙂

I stand back and laugh at myself because there are many times that Micah’s therapies are harder for my mom-brain (choleric side) to accept than for my kid to deal with.  Micah’s totally onboard. He has no problem with being told to play with his food, but then again, he doesn’t have mommy-brain syndrome.  I give myself a stern talking to & tell myself not to be so anal-retentive.  I know the benefits of what we are doing; so what if it means making a mess?

…..I know that when I tell Darren tonight about our OT instructions, that he will not only think that it’s cool, but will do the “told-u-so dance” (okay, Darren won’t dance, but he will laugh), and point out that he wasn’t being a bad influence dunking cookies into milk in front of Micah (because I nagged him not to do that, so Micah wouldn’t copy). He was just ahead of himself, an OT Genius, practicing some therapy with Micah before we knew that it was considered therapy.
….I will sit back, relax, and let my sanguine side take the reins with this one and have a little fun while we help Micah adapt.  After all, it’s not playing with your food if it’s all rigid and rules.   Who knows, maybe all this food fun will cultivate my kid into a great food enthusiast and maybe the next, GREAT: Chef; Food Stylist; Farmer; Rancher; Baker; Sommelier; Charcutier; Event Planner; or Anthony Bourdain (minus the attitude)!     🙂

Bring on the food.  It’s about to get messy.  Anyone up for a food fight?  I hear it’s great therapy.  LOL!

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For anyone that is scratching his/her head over the words I used to describe my  personality, here is one definition for the 2 words I used that form my temperament (I find that I’m a mishmash combination [Sanguine/Choleric] of these two.  And, yesssss I took a temperament/personality test years ago. That’s why I use these fancy-schmancy words.  I find it easier than listing off a bunch of adjectives that are incorporated under the definition of each one.) :

Sanguine
The sanguine temperament is fundamentally impulsive and pleasure-seeking; sanguine people are sociable and charismatic. They tend to enjoy social gatherings, making new friends and tend to be boisterous. They are usually quite creative and often daydream. However, some alone time is crucial for those of this temperament. Sanguine can also mean sensitive, compassionate and thoughtful. Sanguine personalities generally struggle with following tasks all the way through, are chronically late, and tend to be forgetful and sometimes a little sarcastic. Often, when they pursue a new hobby, they lose interest as soon as it ceases to be engaging or fun. They are very much people persons. They are talkative and not shy. Sanguines generally have an almost shameless nature, certain that what they are doing is right. They have no lack of confidence.

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Choleric
The choleric temperament is fundamentally ambitious and leader-like. Capable of quick and accurate decisions based on facts rather than emotions.  Capable of carrying considerable responsibility, the people tend to have significant quantities of will-power. The complete the tasks they set out to accomplish.  They can dominate people of other temperaments, especially phlegmatic types. Many great charismatic military and political figures were choleric. They like to be in charge of everything. However, cholerics also tend to be either highly disorganized or highly organized. They do not have in-between setups, only one extreme to another.  Strengths of this temperament include openness, optimism, and an outgoing nature. However, the downside of this temperament can be an angry, rejecting behavior toward others.

Tags: autism, child, choleric, diet, food, fun, micah, Occupational therapy, OT, personality, play, playing with food, reaction, sanguine, temperament
Filed under: Micah, My Life, Randomness