Good Eats

"Aww, but I LOVE solids!" - Homer J. Simpson

Sonny boy is coming such a long way. It seemed like only yesterday that this was pretty much every hour of our day:

The glorious early days (click to enlarge)

Huh, I've forgotten about those days. Mustn't have been too hard.

Now he's got his first teeth coming in, and solids are in full swing! Such excitement!

He loves him some solids. I'd say so far he willingly eats most things if I wanted to jinx it. But I don't, so I've said nothing. He wasn't always so willing at first, though. More dramatics, making me wonder what he was tasting. The books and doctors all tell us we have to try a food on a baby ten times before deciding if he likes it or not, though. Good Grief. TEN TIMES??

Once they're into it, I guess we're supposed to let them explore the food with their hands and various utensils. Man, in case you know nothing about babies, that's a mess. It doesn't get anywhere near the mouth. All I have to say is he'd better be developing a skill or gaining a love for something in all of this.

Then I'm left to clean a high chair which, I've discovered, has way too many nooks and crannies for its own good. High chairs should be one smooth plastic mass.

Do you use those plastic scoop bibs? I remember those from when my sister was a baby, and they're pretty awesome. They catch everything and protect the pants. Warning: Do not look directly in the scoop. 

The only downside is when my son tries to tip it towards his face for some reason, or when he slouches like this and manages to get the bib in his mouth.

So that's how stuff was still getting all over his shirt.

The other thing to watch for is when he gnaws on the high chair tray and then rests his forehead on it. It can make for a becoming case of Sweet Potato Eyebrows, which I don't always notice before taking him to the mall.

Sweet Potato Eyebrows

Anyway, it goes with the rice cake in my hair. (That only happened ONCE, but still)

Cheerios are fun to watch him eat. He's still working on the pincer grasp, so at this point, eating involves mashing his fist into his face and gnawing until he hits food. Current success rate: 10% 30%! Getting there!

Effective eating, at least of adult food, is definitely not a skill human babies are born with. Thank goodness we have adults to manage things for us while we develop these skills, or else we'd all be very hungry and very messy for a long time.