Let the Adventure Begin!

Well, it had to happen someday, and now that day has arrived: Adventures in Eating! A few weeks ago, we took over the responsibility of counting the phe Carson gets from his food every day (remember "phe" is short for the phenylananine in protein that he can only have a limited amount of). I am still in the learning phase of all this, so for any pros out there, pointers are appreciated! For now, this is what we are doing:

We have a special book that lists the amount of phe in just about any food you can imagine. Yes, we had to pay for this book. I call it Carson's Food Bible. Right now Carson's prescription consists of 100mg of phe from food, so every day I try to make sure he gets as close to 100mg of phe as possible. He is still eating mostly baby food, and I have his basic meal plan down to a routine. He gets his cereal and bananas for breakfast, 1 or 2 veggies and/or a fruit for lunch, and 2 veggies and a fruit for supper. I try to decide each morning what he will eat and give Nana his menu. I calculate how much phe he has had based on The Book. Just like the nutritionist told me, I pretty much have his main foods memorized now. I know that 2T of cereal has 30mg of phe, and 1T of bananas has 5mg, so his breakfast is 35mg phe total. Carson's newest favorite, green beans and rice, has 10mg phe per tablespoon. The way I figured this in the beginning was to weigh 1T of each food on the gram scale, then multiply the mg phe per gram of food from The Book. So I still measure his food in tablespoons, but each time I give him a new food I have to weigh it to get the phe. I write these down in the notebook I call Carson's Food Diary. I make a new entry for each day and we write down the time he eats or takes a bottle, how much he took of it, and what it was. I keep a running total so we can make adjustments to our meal plan if needed, like if he needs a snack during the day. The fun is trying to figure out how much of each thing to give him and how to make it all balance out. It is a work in progress, for sure. The hard part for me is just now beginning: table food. I am very nervous about calculating his phe and keeping up with his diet as he tried new foods. He eats any kind of baby food we give him, but table food is a different story.

We are trying to introduce some table foods, but it is not going well so far. I have managed to get him to take some carrots chopped up in his baby food carrots, finally. He hasn't taken to bananas yet, but we're working on it. Can you believe he doesn't like potatoes yet? That is a good thing for now, because they are a little higher in phe. He does like sweet potatoes though. His favorite is green beans and rice baby food. That's a good start toward table food because it is very lumpy. I actually fed him some of my green beans at church Sunday and he loved them! He has also tasted of olives, pickles, and French fries. Of all those things, he spit out some of the fries!

He is finally figuring out how to eat the apple wagon wheels, and he chowed down on one until it broke apart in his hand. Mommy was so proud! More adventures to come...