FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD!
I have taken some big steps in the nutrition department over the past few months. While breast milk is yummy, healthy and convenient I really began to feel left out at mealtime. My parents would sit down to plates full of food (my mother requests no comments on the fact that perhaps the plates should not be so full) as I sat in my bouncy seat sucking on my fingers or the Cow Book. I made my interest in joining my parents at the “big table” clear by grabbing for their utensils, making big mouth bass gestures with my mouth and generally being a pest in the dining room. My parents caught on pretty quick and started me on rice cereal in no time.

Simple spoon-fed rice cereal is a distant memory now. I have expanded my fare to include the following: spinach, beets, chard, carrots, squash, sweet potato, barley, oatmeal, apple, pear, banana, yogurt, cottage cheese, lime, lemon, wheat germ, pickles (thanks for sneaking those in Grammy!) avocado, corn, peas, and green beans. Mommy started me on purees, always sizzing in a spice or two into each batch. Living was pretty easy back then. Mommy or Daddy would mix up a bowl of puree for me and plate of food for them and the three of us would sit down as a family for a meal. I would relax and open my mouth any time a spoon approached my mouth. (see above picture)

At some point a decision was made that I needed to learn something called “self-feeding” and suddenly Cheerios appeared on my high chair tray. “Self-feeding” was a fun and fairly clean game. I would flail my hands randomly at the tray, occasionally get a Cheerio stuck to my hand and even less occasionally get said Cheerio into my mouth. All the while this game was going on though, my parents kept the various purees coming so I was getting pretty full fast.

At a second point another decision was made to move beyond Cheerios and require me to actually get substantial amounts of food from tray to mouth. Now cubes of various foodstuffs appeared on my tray. The game got more serious (since I was now responsible in part for receiving sustenance from this food) and substantially messier. The picture to the right illustrates this.

While I do like to reminisce back to my simple gastronomical life of purees, I have to say I appreciate my new-found independence that came along with the food cubes. I am now free to pick up the pieces that look most tasty, I can now squeeze, mush and mash the pieces into the consistency I desire and I can now feed whichever pieces do not appeal to me to my dog Rufus (he now joins us at dinner time…interestingly sitting right underneath my chair) I also have something to look forward to…I have heard talk that fish and chicken will be appearing on my tray this week.