Time to Talk about Eating

So...how is Mic doing with oral feeding these days??? Its been so long since I've tried to really write about it that it feels like theres LOTS to say and NOTHING to say. Weird contradiction, none-the-less, how I feel.
I had been planning to do another wean therapy here at home last summer. And just then she hit a weight gain crisis. All my effort was forced from oral intake to blenderized diet recipe analysis, and just trying to stop the weight loss. Well, now that that is finally more under control, my mind is turning oral-ward again.
I have known all along that before I "DO" anything drastic, I need to collect some data again. Going back to the whole, weigh-each-gram-before-and-after-each meal-and-count-each-calorie-down-to-the-half, routine feels so cumbersome and overwhelming. It is, however, a very necessary evil. Last week I managed to log one day. ...and is was cumbersome...but also, surprisingly, a bit exhilerating. Its premature to take anything off of one day only, but I did have some immediate observations. 1)a half a sandwich has way more calories in it than I remembered! 2)her oral cal's for the day didn't show much progress, but the amount of effort it took to get those calories into her, ...there's no comparision! Breakfast was work...it always is. I did dedicate a lot of one-to-one time to her at lunch too... but supper was basically effortless. She sat. I placed the plate in front of her. She ate. ...every last bite of the small portion. And asked to be excused to go play. That is so profoundly "normal" I could work myself up to tears over it. The good kind of tears.
Some other "progressy" events recently include an evening when she asked for refried beans with her chips. And a different day when she asked for chocolate milk and actually drank the very small amount that we gave her--all of it! These are both textures that if one is the easiest for her and 10 they hardest they were 11's. She has not repeated either of those events, but she has done it once, is processing it, and in time I know she will go there again and it will be easier each time.
We are not on a time table. I cannot, will not, do that to us. But soon, sometime very soon, we will do another calorie-cut, and feeding therapy, mimicking the technics we learned in her feeding therapy at the Toft House, and the possabilities excite me. Maybe, just maybe we are finally near a significant jump in numbers. We covet your prayers and encouragement as we continue along this way.