The Yogurt

Today was the day. I *finally* got to give Asher the yogurt. Funny how life can hang on such a simple thing, isn't it?

The staff person said, "He may not like it. In all his 7 years he has never had yogurt before."

That made me just a little bit sad, but only for a second when I realized *I* get to be the one to give it to him. *I* get to see his face as he tastes and feels it's creamy smoothness for the first time. I do need to be careful to allow Dean some firsts too! LOL

Now you may remember my telling you that his tongue is always out of his mouth. Now if I click my tongue he will put his away. Also, when he uses a spoon he puts it way back in his mouth, and does not use his lips at all. This was going to be interesting.

The first bite, I put it back in his mouth where he usually does, and somehow....in a way that was invisible to both the staff person and myself....he got it off the spoon. Interesting! We watched his face, his eyes cast off to the side as he thought about this flavor, then sucked on his tongue for a second. Then he got a HUGE grin and opened his mouth wide!

Then I had a lightbulb moment. You know the kind where someone smacks you in the head with the lightbulb? Yeah, one of those. I clicked my tongue so he would bring his in his mouth, then put the spoon in, and BOOM! Lips closed on the spoon! It didn't work on the second try but after several bites he was trying to do it on his own without prompting. I think that was pretty good success for just a 4 oz yogurt.

He was NOT happy when that tiny cup of yogurt was gone. Not only that, but it was now about 9:45 with lunch not until 11:30 or so. That was it for his snack because he is not allowed "double snacks". For now I will bite my tongue, because I must follow the rules. The important thing is to get Asher out of the orphanage and home to his forever family.

Later I took Asher outside and we played with a rocking toy. I would sit directly in front of it, rocking it while he tried not to look at me. Once in awhile he'd catch my eye and give me a shy grin. I would sing part of a song then stop singing AND rocking the toy right in the middle of the song. Then I would say/sign "more", and use his hands to do it too. We must have done this for a good 7-8  minutes when he start squinting his eyes shut just before I was going to hand-over-hand sign with him. Not like it was overwhelming for him, but like a silly face. We kept on with the game, and at about the 10 minute mark he STARTED to sign it himself, but I got a little eager with the "BRAVO!" and startled him so he stopped. LOL Tomorrow we'll play our game again and see if he remembers. I'm thinking he does. ;-)