Xander

Written July 2019

by Amy Cornia, Xander’s mom

Alexander “Xander” Cornia is a happy and energetic 2 1/2 year old boy.  He likes to run, sing his ABCs, play in the water, and look at books.  He loves to be tickled and to play peek-a-boo -- his smile can light up the room and his laugh is infectious!  He adores his 6 year old brother Timmy and follows him everywhere, even when his brother doesn’t necessarily want him to.   
 
Xander was diagnosed last year with Severe Oral Aversion and Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder.  This means that Xander is still not eating solid foods and avoids putting things in or near his mouth.  He has pretty much had eating issues since birth – he was born 4 weeks early and had to be finger fed because he was too weak to bottle or breastfeed.  However once we started trying baby food at 6 months old, we realized the extent of his aversion.   He would turn his head and clamp his lips shut; he wasn’t interested in eating food at all.  We tried off and on until he turned a year old, when he finally started being willing to eat small amounts of pureed baby foods.  From there we slowly moved up to thicker and lumpier textures and finally to table mashed foods. 
 
Our family faces quite a few challenges because of his oral aversion.  For instance, if he’s hungry we can’t just hand him a cracker or a sandwich.  His food has to be specially prepared because he can only tolerate certain flavors and textures, or else he gags and cannot eat.  This means preparing his food every single day for home and daycare, and bringing it in a cooler if we’re traveling.  It means that we can’t eat in a restaurant as a family because he would be unable to eat anything on the menu, and he doesn’t get to eat the same foods as the other kids at his daycare.
 
Xander receives feeding clinics and therapy from Early Intervention and the CDRC in Eugene.  With their help we’ve been able to work our way closer to getting him to eat solids.  He has made good progress in the last year and we’re hopeful that with continued work he will soon be eating the same foods the rest of the family eats.
 
Xander has many strengths -- he recognizes his numbers and can count to 50, he also knows his entire alphabet, shapes, and colors.  When we drive in the car he loves to look for speed limit signs out the window and shout the numbers he sees.  Our hope for his future is that he continues to make progress, stays healthy, enjoys his life to the fullest, and keeps chasing after his big brother!