Kate has been getting little tastes of solid food since December 1, but it was more interesting for her to play with the spoon and smush things up. She put things in her mouth, gummed them, then spit them back out. It was funny and amusing and I felt no real need to do it with any frequency, just when I felt like it.

In this past week since returning home from vacation it’s like a little lightbulb went off in her head and she’s thinking this eating thing is pretty fantastic. Plus I found some fruit flavors that she got really excited about, that probably helped too! She still only eats at most half a jar in a sitting ( which is fine by me because I get worried about feeding her too much and then her not drinking as much milk – silly, I know, but I think it), but for her that is a lot! Yesterday she kept putting out her hands and saying, “Ummmmmm!!!” which in Kate language means More! More! No stop!

She used to want to play with the spoon the entire time, and once in a while I would get it back and put more food on it. Part of her lightbulb is that she now realizes that to get more food in her mouth she needs to give me the spoon. And so now after sucking the food off of it she pulls it out of her mouth and shoves it at me. Pretty clear message there! Then I put more food on it and hold it out and ask, “Want more?” She leans forward, grabs the spoon with her hand, and puts it in her mouth. We did her whole meal like that. Den tries to put the spoon in her mouth to cut down on messes but I just let her do it. Yes she bonks her nose sometimes, but she’s learning.

I give her a mix of baby food and finger foods – I think it’s important to let her experience different textures and learn to gnaw on and chew things, but the baby food has more flavors than I can realistically offer her in finger foods. I feel a little guilty about that, like I ought to be doing all homemade food, but whatever.

On vacation she was introduced to Cheerios since she had started using the pincer grasp, and she likes them okay. I had bought some organic “green vegetable” puffs earlier and she did not like those at all. I just bought some gerber peach-flavored puffs and she totally loves them. Pear has been her favorite flavor from the start, but she just discovered that banana and banana mixes are pretty awesome as well, even though she didn’t care for the actual banana slices I gave her. Avacado slices she had a lot of fun with and ate quite a bit – she was making little faces but kept putting them in her mouth. She makes a lot of faces, actually. Every time I give her something new, or even when I pull out a flavor she had before but was not what she was expecting, she wrinkles her nose as she looks at me. Broccoli and peas got the biggest reactions, though, gagging, tongue out, squinty eyes as she screwed up her face in a look of disgust. Hilarious. The girl does not care for vegetables. She’ll eat squash okay and carrots too, but definitely not her favorites. I don’t blame her one bit, I still don’t like vegetables – I am definitely not the person to be convincing her to eat them.

One definite side bonus to having meals with her is that I actually get to eat! Whereas before I had to find some way to occupy her while I made food and ate, now we share a meal together. Plus I’m keeping fresh fruit in the house, she gets a few pieces and I get the rest. :)