Pictures

One of the projects I am working on now is scanning our pre-digital camera pictures into the computer. As I sort through our pictures and scan them, the one thing that has struck me and overwhelmed me is how thin Kimmie was for so very long.

I'm so glad she has filled out and looks healthy and strong today.

Kimmie was always thin as a child, but there was a spell where she gained some height but not really any weight.

There was also a year of school where her teacher would not let anyone help Kimmie with her lunch. Kimmie was stubborn and this made her mad. Every day she would throw her lunch on the floor because they would not help her. Since her food was gone, we did not realize she was not eating. We did not realize until later that this was happening.

That was a very difficult year for all of us as Kimmie spent a great deal of time screaming hysterically. I had not figured out yet that she screams for no apparent reason when she is hungry.

These two events occurred about the same time and as we watched Kimmie become thinner and thinner, we were very concerned. I talked to the doctor about it and he recommended that I talk to a nutricianist. He advised me to keep a food journal of everything Kimmie eats each day and the quantity.

I took Kimmie's food journal to the nutricianist and she calculated how many calories Kimmie consumed each day. She advised that Kimmie did not consume enough calories to support growth. Pretty scary! I asked her what she would recommend that I feed Kimmie so that she would be consuming more calories. Pediasure. We tried that. It has a smell that I associate with vitamins. Kimmie would not drink it. Peanut butter. We tried that. Kimmie cannot eat peanut butter. It is too thick and just gets stuck in her mouth. She does not have the oral motor dexterity required for thinning and moving peanut butter to the back of her mouth where she can swallow it.

We were able to supplement her milk with Carnation Instant Breakfast which added some extra calories. And we worked a lot harder at getting her to eat more and eat more frequently.

The fact that Kimmie has never been able to identify the feeling of hunger as hunger added to the problem as well.

Kimmie eats pretty good now and she has snacks in between, which helps her mood (unless her snack is OREOS!). We even sometimes have trouble buttoning Kimmie's jeans! Compared to those years she almost looks pudgy now. We laugh about that sometimes. It doesn't bother Kimmie. She wants to have a tummy like Pooh Bear!

--Mom