Day 29.

Wow. I'm starting to get a little nervous about ending my blog... I've gotten very used to sitting up at night and journaling. I feel a little like Sue Sylvester from Glee. Only not really. :P

We did a lot of driving again today. And my good friend the portable DVD player was on high alert.. It was a little harder today. I'm sure all of the kids are tired of driving, and just plain tired. It was harder for Vicki to wait today too. At one point she said clear as day, 'can we go out for dinner?' I love hearing her say that. What a great sentence... she heard Ally ask it one time, and now it's her go to phrase when she's hungry in the car. But we couldn't do it right then. Because the kids had just eaten lunch about an hour before. So I showed her her schedule and it said lunch, reading, tv, dinner...  and she had technically already looked at a book and also watched a movie. So the next thing on her schedule was dinner. (I guess i should think about adding multiple tv's to show multiple videos...) I was able to get her mind off of dinner for a while, but it's like an internal clock goes off at the time when she thinks it's time for dinner. And there is no redirecting her then. She just keeps talking about dinner and talking about dinner... (Tonight it was Vicki. Dinner. Pizza. Yes. Time for dinner. 9 minutes. Pizza. Yes.) I guess she wanted pizza... but, and I was proud of myself for this, and proud of Vicki for this, I got her to understand that we were eating things I had packed in the car tonight for dinner... peanut butter and jelly tacos as she calls them (rolled up in a soft tortilla shell), squeezy yogert and grapes.

I have to say that one of my biggest concerns right now with Vicki is food. And how much she is fixated on it. And I also know that I've used her love of food to try to teach her things. Because food is a high motivator for her now.

I know I've said this before, heck, I may have already posted what I am about to say... (So sorry if this is a redo...) Vicki loves food. And we've used food for multiple functions. We've used food to get her to interact with us. (ie... helping out in the kitchen, putting away groceries, following directions...) We've used food to get her to communicate with us. (ie... by making her use full sentences when requesting food items, and always trying to incorporate more language and more learning into the situation... ie... how many meatballs do you want? one-two-free-free-meatballs... ) We've used food so she can socially interact with her peers (ie...sitting with others at lunch and in the summer taking a cooking class - of course she needs a 1:1 to assist her, but she loved the class so much and she was really good at it. I can't wait for her to do it again this summer!) We've used food to help her make choices (ie... by having her make her school lunch choices). We've used food as a reinforcer (to help reinforce positive behavior, especially when Vic is having trouble with something,  and if it's a very hard task, although we do try to fade from food to social praise quickly).  And Vicki loves food. She loves her veggies and fruits. She loves Italian and Mexican. She loves sweet, salty, crunchy, chewy, sour, hot and spicy foods. (She loves it all, with the exception, apparently, of communion hosts... we are one week out from her First Holy Communion and we are working hard with her visual strip I made her, and her first and then... first host, then chocolate rocks... yes... it seems wrong to do it like that... but we are slowly getting it... )
And I've had a lot of people tell me that they love to watch Vicki eat. And, honestly, so do I.  I love watching how she puckers her mouth up when she licks a lemon. I love how she sucks her air in when she tastes something spicy. I love it when she blows on her food because it's hot. (She'll repeat, 'Vicki. Blow. Hot.') I love how she'll tell me about what she ate at school... (especially when she says, 'carrots, dip, celery, dip, broccoli, dip...)  I love how excited she gets when we tell her we are going to Applebees.  She loves Ratatouille and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. She loves Man vs Food and other cooking shows. She loves cookbooks of all kinds and my Taste of Home magazines. Her favorite play-doh accessories are her pasta maker and her ice cream maker.

And as much as I love her interactions and her connection to the world because of food, I am scared too. I am scared because she doesn't seem to have an off button programmed within her right now. She doesn't seem to get full, or if she does, she doesn't stop herself. She doesn't seem to understand that she doesn't have to eat EVERY single thing on her plate. She doesn't seem to understand when we go out to dinner that what she orders is what she gets and nothing else... But of course, we perpetuate it. Because if she asks for a bite of meat, we reinforce her by giving her a bite of meat, sometimes.  It can sometimes be a challenge to say no to her. Although we do say no. (But my initial reaction is to give her what she wants, because it's great to hear her voice, and it's great when she asks for something correctly.)  But I watch. I watch her closely. And I watch the types of food we give her and her portion size. And I get scared. I know that her appetite has increase lately, as has her weight. Thankfully her height has too... But there will be a time when she stops growing up. And I don't want her to grow out. I know this is going to sound very vain of me, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Of course I want her to be healthy. Of course I want her to be able to make good choices. Of course I want her to be able to balance her food intake with adequate exercise. Of course I want her to be able to stop herself when she is full. But here's the vain part. And I really hate admitting this. I know I am her mommy, and I am a bit biased.  But I think Vic is beautiful. Both inside and out. And I know this isn't how the world is 'supposed' to work. But I've always felt that it has never hurt Vicki, being pretty. In fact, sometimes I think people gravitate to her because she is pretty. When we go out, so many people still stop and stare at her hair. And older women come up and touch her hair. And people ask me if I put her hair in curlers at night to get it that curly... (Um... NO!) I couldn't imagine that! And when Vicki smiles, she lights up the room. I don't want. I don't want people to shy away from her. I don't want people to not interact with her. I don't want people to not want to work with her because she is too big to handle when she has a behavior that gets out of control.

And I'm scared because Vicki gets so mad. So much of the time, it doesn't seem like the amount she is eating, satisfies her hunger. And she gets mad. And she keeps asking for more food. I am trying really hard to create good eating habits for her and have her eat the right things. About a year ago, we took away a lot of her sugary juice drinks and replaced them with water. That was huge! She drinks water every night for dinner now and never asks for anything else... But she is always asking for food.

Along those same lines, trying to get her to adequately exercise has been a challenge. Santa brought the kids a wii for christmas. And every once in a while we can get Vicki to do a short run. But it takes everything we have to motivate her. And we've tried a few of the other programs on the wii, but it takes at least 2 people to help her move her body for the specific functions. We do have 'exercise' on her schedule. And she can do upwards of 120 sit ups at a time. :P  Woo hoo!!!! And we try to do some balance and coordination stuff. Ball work. Jumping on the trampoline. etc... But after a minute or two. That's it. And it is seriously hard to motivate someone who does not want to be motivated. We continue to work with special olympics to get her involved in sports. She likes to run, but not for very long or for very far. She's enjoyed the water, but trying to get her to 'swim' a lap is very, very hard. And recently, she's been having issues in the water again and I think I've said before that she has been yelling and holding her ears a lot in the water the last few times. We may need some sort of earplugs, but I don't know how we could even make that work for her. She likes the playground and does climb on some of the equipment. But when it's just me at the playground with all the kids, it's hard. And I am so paranoid. I know i need to get over my fears, but the running away, and the being silly on equipment continue to stress me out. (Once, I think when she was 4 or so, she was climbing on the playground equipment and I was up there with her, and in one instant, she was being silly and just stepped off the ledge. It was about 4 feet up and she just fell. Bam. Right onto her bum and and back. She didn't get hurt. And I don't even think she cried, but I freaked.) And I still get worried that she'll do that again, especially when she is silly. She just lets go of the swing sometimes still and she'll just fall off backwards.

So, I continually worry about how I can help her get more exercise in a safe and fun environment and how I can help moderate her food without her temper flairing. And i know that so much of it comes from me. How I eat. How I exercise, or don't. How i react to stuff. And I'm working on it. And then I don't. And then i get scared because I know I need to be in some sort of shape to best benefit Vicki and all of my kids. And to motivate them. And set a good example. I get scared because I'm not a fast runner. What if my adrenaline doesn't just 'kick in' in a situation with Vicki? I know I need to get stronger. Because I don't need to huff and puff when I am working with a tantrum with Vicki.

I was talking with my husband the other day. And he told me how proud he was of me for committing to something and sticking with it. Granted this is only for '30 days', but still... I said I was going to do a blog for 30 days and I am. So I told my husband that maybe I should set a new 30 day goal in May. For me. Because I know I lose myself. Don't we all? I put my husband and my children above everything. Even me. Especially me. So, tune in to my 30 day blog in May, about me. (Ha ha... just kidding, about the blog, not about me...) If I spend all of the time I've devoted to writing this blog this month (for my emotional well being) on my physical well being... well, that would be awesome. :P  And that would set a good example for Vicki, and Joey and Ally at the same time... Because i don't want to keep saying, 'do as i say, not as i do...'