Gag Me With a...Pea

When Ryan was four months old, we started giving him "solid" food. I have to put the word solid in quotation marks because the stuff we gave him could only be defined as solid in the absolute loosest sense of the word. Baby rice cereal, applesauce, pureed pears, and mashed sweet potatoes are more liquid than solid. But they've got more to them then watery formula, so "solid" it is.

And over the past two months, we've been working our way up to foods that are a little closer to the true definition of solid. We've been mixing the rice cereal and oatmeal thicker and thicker each time. We've recently experimented with Stage 2 foods that are a bit less finely pureed and have some texture to them.  We have a couple of little mesh feeder bags that we've given him with ice cubes or chunks of melon to suck on and to gnaw on a little. And in just the past couple of days we've tried teething biscuits. The initial reaction to the teething biscuits was less than stellar: Ryan gnawed happily for a bit until a few crumbs came off in his mouth, then he made a very strange face and made the "hairball" noise (anyone who's ever had a cat will recognize that sound). He did NOT like that texture in his mouth one bit. But the ultimate food rejection so far was last night when Daddy gave him a mashed up pea.

Never have you seen such elaborate gagging faces as his reaction to said pea. You'd think we'd forced him to eat a cockroach or raw octopus. I guess the sweetness of the nice fresh pea was lost in the unpleasant (to him) mouth feel.

So I guess we're back to smoother foods for a while yet. But we'll keep trying new things. Who knows, maybe it'll be something like cockroach or raw octopus that appeals to him.

Feed Me, Seymour

As of Ryan's last pediatrician visit, we have officially entered the world of solid food. She told us to start him on rice cereal, so naturally we stopped on the way home to pick some up. And the next day I went out and bought a high chair, since we realized a bit too late that both laps and the jumperoo chair are not particularly conducive to feeding a not-always-cooperative baby.

Given his size and appetite, as well as his propensity to put everything in his reach in his mouth, I figured that eating would be a snap. And that's mostly true. As long as you catch him in a good mood, he's more than willing to open his mouth. He even grabs the spoon himself (usually with his left hand - I'm starting to suspect he may turn out to be a lefty!), and leans helpfully toward each bite. And most of the time he manages to get at least some of the food in his mouth. (He did discover the lovely "splat" noise the cereal makes if he bites halfway down the spoon, but at least that means half of it goes in his mouth even if the other half goes up his nose, all over the tray, all over Mommy, etc.)

But I'd forgotten about one major issue: swallowing. He hasn't quite gotten the hang of what to do after the cereal goes in his mouth. So he usually ends up kind of rolling it around with his tongue, enjoying making smacking noises with it, and then just letting it dribble all over his face and chin. But if anybody can work the cereal goatee, it's Ryan. How can you not love the cereal-covered grin?

So we'll keep working on it, and I'm sure eventually he'll discover how nice it is when the cereal goes all the way into his tummy instead of just staying all over his face. But for now, I'll just keep enjoying the flecks of cereal in his hair, in my hair, all over the kitchen...it's all good.