crying over chicken nuggets

So.

JF has weird things with his mouth and throat and he always has.  Like he's always been on thickened formula, we had to teach him to chew, and he used to throw up almost every day.

Recently his feeding/speech therapist gave him clearance to drink normal liquids and eating has become so much better and the vomiting has stopped since we found out he is severely allergic to a lot of things.

When we were in the NICU there was a day when his feeding therapist sat down with me and told me she didn't think JF would ever be able to eat.  She really thought he'd probably have to be fed through a feeding tube for all of his life.  I don't know why but a wheelchair I could handle.  Blindness or deafness I could handle.  I know it shows how naive, ignorant, and stupid I was but I just thought that he'd be able to eat and drink even with all the other issues.

I wanted my little boy to have ice cream cones and Popsicles in the summer, pancakes and bacon on Sunday mornings, Christmas cookies and Halloween candy.  I wanted him to know the crispness of a fall apple and the juiciness of a tomato from our garden.  A cool swig of water, the sip of his first beer, Holy Communion.

I was crushed when she told me that he probably wouldn't be able to eat.

And so today when he ate two chicken nuggets at lunch, asked for two more and ate those, too... well - I cried.  I cried because JF was eating the same lunch his brother and sister. He was eating like a normal kid.

I'm sure you will understand when I tell you that today I am so grateful to God for chicken nuggets.