Saturday, October 28, 2006

Food

Our pediatrician recommends that babies wait until 6 months before getting 'real' food. Unfortunately, Pippa has taken matters into her own hands. For the past couple of weeks when we eat she'll stare at us, mimic chewing motions, and reach with her hands for the food. The tipping point came last week when I was out to lunch w/ a friend and Pippa launched herself out of my lap, into my dessert plate, and tried to shovel a cannoli into her mouth. Sooo... we ordered a high chair and started 'food'.


Pippa in her snazzy new high chair



Pippa with her sippy cup of water

And, da da da, Pippa with 'food'. Babies 4-6 months are supposed to start on rice cereal. It's nasty stuff, really, but kids who aren't started on some type of grain cereal in that timeslot can develop gastrointestinal problems and diseases (like Crohn's disease) and have something like a 4 times greater risk of developing diabetes as adults. Crazy. So, rice cereal it is.

All the books say kids hate rice cereal, that you should only make up a tiny amount because they won't finish the helping, that most of them spit it out and don't actually get much into them, and that really this is about practicing eating and getting a little bit of new food into them, not about actually fulfilling any caloric needs. But, of course, we're talking about Pippa here. What this picture doesn't show is her flapping her arms in excitement and making little whooping noises. I made double the amount I thought she'd need and she ate it all. This picture was taken at the end of the meal and you can see her bib is almost completely clean. She only gets messy now because we apparently don't move fast enough for her and when the spoon comes near her she has to 'help' -- which means while a fair amount lands in her mouth, it also goes in her ear, eyes, nose, on the dogs, etc.




She LOVES this cup. When she sees it come out of the cupboard she flaps her arms, opens her mouth, and screeches like an exotic bird (for those of you without babies, these are all signs of extreme joy).




As usual we had a bumper crop of basil this year. I harvested the end of it before the nights dipped into the mid-30s -- this pile is after using it all summer and fall, etc. It took me almost two hours to wash and dry it, and then it made 8 large batches of pesto that we froze. Mmm.... pesto....

Links to these pictures, and previous ones.

Comments:
Nice chair-heehee! Sorry we didn't get to chat at Target yesterday.
 
Pippa sounds like that plant in Little Shop of Horrors: "Feed me NOW, I'm STARVING!"
 
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