Thor Hates Food

While we were at the zoo, we let Thor play on the tiny tot playground. He pulled himself up on a little weeble wobble farmer. He liked banging on the hat.

Then he started playing with the sand on the brim.  Thor thought it would be a good idea to taste his hands after playing with the sand, not realizing the foreign object was on his fingers.

AHHHHHHH! Someone's trying to poison me!!!

Now, you may think he is only crying his heart out because its sand, and ewwww who likes to eat sand? But you would be wrong! No, no, he is crying because there is something other than milk in his mouth and no matter how much he spits, he can't get it out. Thor has decided not to eat any real food. Just milk.

He has never been a big fan of cereal or baby food, although we have still been trying to get him to eat it. But he used to like chewing on soy bean pods, celery, lemons, pickles, crackers, etc. Now, he won't put them anywhere near his mouth. I can give him a Gerber cookie that he used to like to gum up and he just bangs it on his high chair tray while I prepare and eat breakfast. And he turns up his nose at eggs, too.  He won't even chew on food in his mesh feeder.

And try to give him baby food--holy cow! His lips are sealed tighter than if he was underwater! He's even learned that when he cries we take advantage of the moment to stuff food inside. So now he just grunts his disapproval through clamped jaws.  If by some miracle, I manage to get food past his lips, he promptly spits it as far as he can.

 Now he's learned to throw up on command. I have to get this on video because no one is going to believe that an 8 month old can throw up literally at will. It is crazy!!! This morning I scraped the smallest bit of a banana with a spoon to put on his tongue (hoping he would think it was the best thing he ever tasted). It was about the size of a piece of rice.  I put it on his tongue (ok I held it to his lips until it was smeared on them and he made the mistake of licking his lips when I took the spoon away). He made 2 gagging sounds (I could see the banana on the tip of his tongue, so he wasn't choking on it) and he vomited his milk he ate 30 minutes before all over his tray. 

Now normally, I wouldn't care. He's drinking formula so no biggie of he doesn't like anything else--he's getting nutrition.  But he's constipated. So he needs juice or fruit to unclog his poor little intestines.  And he refuses to drink juice--prune juice, apple juice, blueberry juice, grape juice, cranberry juice--he hates it all.  We've tried it in a bottle, a cup, off a spoon and a medicine dropper.  We tried mixing it with cereal or his formula. Nothing works. He can sniff out juice like a hound dog!

But one of the secretaries at work that raised 3 boys told me to give him a teaspoon of molasses in his formula until he poops. I didn't think he would drink the formula with it in there, but he did. And it worked! Gary and I felt so bad for the little guy!! He cried and cried when he pushed out a huge (for a baby) log of poop!! Ouch!! He still won't eat anything but formula, but I'm going to remember the molasses trick.