It Takes a Village

When it comes to parenting, the idea that it takes a village to raise a child is some of the most truthful words I've ever heard. Our village is one that I am so thankful for day in and day out. They provide us support in so many ways, whether it's clipping coupons for the PediaSure Alex needs, ordering from my Etsy shop or my Country Scents Candles page, sending care packages in the mail with foods he likes or may want to try or just being an ear for me to vent to... our village is the best one around. Just today we had a friend who out of the blue shipped us a case of his PediaSure, enough to last us about 6 days. That little act is such an amazing savings to us and only helps to get Alex stronger.

Alex posing here with his care package of PediaSure. This is about a 6 day supply for him or about 20% of what he drinks per month of these.

This isn't the first care package he's received. Earlier this summer friends who I should really just call family send him a shipment of assorted crackers and cookies. None of which were his "safe" choices for any of them but that was okay. We used them in our therapy sessions to try and touch new but similiar foods. He could tell me how they were like what he was used to, how they were different, what scared him about them or anything else he was feeling. Did he eat any one of the new foods? No. But that wasn't the point. Our village knows that he needs exposure to these things in a safe environment for him to stand a chance of figuring all this stuff out on his own. There was no pressure of "you have to get him to actually eat this stuff," it was simply a "give this a try and know he has our love and support."

Our care package of unsafe safe foods. We couldn't even get one of those cookies in him but we had fun trying!

In the past, I've put out an SOS because our local stores were running low on his safe foods and was just expecting if someone in a neighboring town found them on the shelves that they would let me know so I could make a trip but instead ended up getting someone with an Amazon Prime account to overnight ship us the yogurts he was eating. We've of course had care packages during our hospital stay. Most recently was a reusable tote bag filled with mid-night snacks for mom and dad to get us through. At the one before that, teddy bears, puzzles and coloring pages were all brought to keep him occupied.

We have been very blessed with having the right people in our corner that refrain from judgment (at least to my face!) and do nothing but show love and support for our little guy. To them, and anyone else who belongs to another little one's village in such a special way, I just wanted to say thank you.