Feeding Therapy at Joe's

Owen has four wonderful therapists that he sees on a weekly basis. He has seen a couple of them for almost two years now! Connie is his Occupational Therapist and she also specialized in feeding therapy.

Connie had a great idea and wanted to see how a few of her feeding kiddos would do when they were put in a group setting. We decided to meet up at Joe's Farm Grill, which has some seriously delicious food. If they won't eat this, I should just give up now!

Owen, Tam and Cora were all born with HLHS and all have the same group of doctors through Phoenix Children's. We had plenty to talk about and catch up on. Cora spent time in ICU at the same time as Owen for their first two surgeries. I got to know Kelly (Cora's Mom) when we were in ICU prior to Owen's 2nd surgery. They just recently found out that Cora will most likely need a transplant. Like Owen, she won't qualify for the third stage surgery. We met Tam for the first time today and she's actually pretty close to her third surgery and doing great!! All three of them are social eaters and only eat a few bites at each meal. It's was interesting to see that they all have the same habits. They stuff food in their cheeks, only eat a few bits, drink out of a straw, but the great news is that they all enjoy food!!

The kids had a good time together, and we had a great time talking about doctors and surgeries, feeding and school. It's always great to talk to others that are dealing with the same issues as we are. Again, the weather could not have been more beautiful!! Here are the three kiddos with Connie.
As we were leaving, we ran into one of Owen's favorite ICU nurses from PCH. What a small world! We'll have to wait until respiratory virus season is over and make a trip over to the hospital to catch up with all his nurses and docs there. I can't believe it's been almost two years since his 2nd open heart surgery and also one of the worst days of my life!! I will never forget his surgeon telling me that "things were not okay, and we're taking things hour by hour with him."

Today was a lot of fun! I hope to get together with these girls soon and hopefully Owen will work on his social skills. He's so used to playing with older kids (sis's age) and doesn't really know how to interact with kids his own age. He watched them run circles around him, so I'm sure it'll get easier as he starts to walk and run with them. But today, he mostly just kicked them with his shoes when they got too close and ignored them. We'll see how he plays with Mason when we get to Stanford next month!!