Squishy

Solid foods – or should I say “solid foods”, since rice cereal thinned down to a runny gruel nearly thin enough to be fed through a bottle can hardly be called solid, are coming along nicely. Gabe opens his mouth willingly for the mysterious non-milk substance, and then rolls it around in his mouth looking concerned. He doesn’t yet eat any significant quantity, but he doesn’t reflexively spit it out, either. We are officially in the land of new mouth experience.

The toughest part of solid food so far is finding the time to feed it to him. During the work-week we’re on a rather rigid schedule, and spooning goo into a baby’s mouth takes both time and focus, so we can’t exactly multi-task this. Miss Kathy at the daycare says she’ll be happy to start feeding Gabe, but I’m not ready to turn over this exciting new development to someone else.

Gabe looks so tiny in the highchair! I will have to get pictures soon.

I think we have already got Gabe off on the path of adventurous eating, because we periodically give him a tiny taste of whatever gravy or sauce we are eating. The raspberry jelly was a particular hit. Gabe now watches our toast go to our mouths, enraptured. I suspect his concerned look when contemplating rice cereal has something to do with it not tasting as exquisitely nummy as jelly.

At the Christmas party I let Gabe gnaw on the rind of a tough and flavorful whole-wheat dinner roll. To say he liked it would be an understatement. He got angry when I took it away.

Gabe’s first session with rice cereal was terminated abruptly when he ninja-grabbed a loaded spoon. Rice cereal squished out between each finger. I realize this is the wee tip of the messy iceberg of baby-feeding, but somehow I wasn’t expecting mess just yet. Silly me.

The age of bibs is upon us.