Moving forward.

Jake's in a big growth phase, and I love it. He's very talkative and beginning to answer some questions spontaneously. Last week, I asked (like I do every day), "How was your day?" when we got inside after getting him off the bus. "I good," he replied. That's a huge step for him. He has also been answering how the bus ride has been, since he's on the big bus now (and after three weeks of having an aide on the bus, just started riding alone this week!). I say, "How was the bus - good, okay, or not so good?" (I vary how I put those options because he often repeats the last one automatically. "Okay," is always his answer.

I'm on a mission to improve his diet and perhaps start the GAPS diet or some variation on that closer to SCD (he won't eat yogurt at this point, or anything with a soupy/thin texture). I feel like I have a reasonable  approach now, compared to when he was younger and we did the SCD and then GFCF diets. I'm not going to drive myself insane trying to do this. I'd like to take him off grains completely, but that's not going to happen immediately. He eats oatmeal for breakfast and has been remarkably inflexible with any other choices. Once in a while he'll eat a bagel with cream cheese, waffles or pancakes, and only the pancakes really help my mission out of those choices. (You can make a really decent pancake out of banana and egg.) His meals are pure meat, usually chicken, and I want to expand that back out to beef, pork and lamb. He eats bananas, apples and grapes. His snacks are gluten-free, but not grain-free: tortilla chips, Veggie Booty, salt and vinegar potato chips, and popcorn.

My plan is to first get the gluten out of his diet. Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Quick Cooking Oats are on the way thanks to Amazon Prime. That takes care of breakfast for now, and we can play with pancakes over February break and see if we can get him eating grain-free pancakes. He mostly eats chicken for meals, but loves spaghetti with red sauce and pizza. I have Tinkyada spaghetti and will reintroduce that for dinner one day. I need to find a good GF pizza crust - and by good, I mean one he'll eat. So that's my main mission. I also wonder if he'd eat a GF bagel and may try some. So when the grocery funds are a little more flush, we'll try the Kinnickkinnick pizza crusts - I've heard they're good - but I'm searching around for other ideas. He doesn't even like all regular pizza crusts, so it's a toughie. He likes his pizza NY-style -- thin, chewy. Like his mama.

On the Burke front, we're kind of treading water. I finished his eighth training session and am taking a bit of a break from sessions till spring hits. It's great for my work life because I get half a day back! But without the motivation of going to the trainer, I haven't been keeping up with working with him as much. Another goal for over break is to get him back on track. We need to do some long-line training outside (where you use a 30-foot leash to have control, but to move toward off-leash work and retrieval). And we'll continue to work on the bond between Jake and Burke. Handling is also a priority since we hope to take him with us through security and into the plane cabin when we fly to Florida in a couple of months. And loose-leash walking is another biggie. He's coming along, it's just a process.

And we're up to 46 out of 60 orders on the iPad challenge! The post is just below - and one change is that now, you just have to put my name in the Challengers Name box right above the "Add to Cart" button. Easier! Thanks to everyone who has contributed.