Huh.

What do babies eat? And when? As in, Cletus will be 6 months in a week and we just tried rice cereal this weekend and I can't remember if children aren't supposed to have any clue on how to swallow, because he certainly cannot get it figured out. I know he is a lagging behind kind of kid... he just started grabbing toys and he finally flipped over to his belly (then gets stuck) but he is drinking like a banshee (assuming banshees consume ridiculous quantities of liquids) and the nanny was all, "I got some free samples and just happened to get these three small jars of organic apples and pears and - look! It says "from 4 months" right on the label! I didn't know if you wanted them for later... you know, when you're ready to have him start food" and I was all, "Oh, that's totally cool because we love free stuff!"

And then I drove off to work wondering if we should be up to steaks and potatoes by now and what age did the girls start eating and maybe I was just one of those mothers who slipped rice into bottles at night hoping it would make their bellies feel fuller because I was too lazy to do the whole spoon fed stuff. I'm almost certain I must have wrestled the little buggers into ingesting beets or beans at some point, but it must have traumatized me because I have absolutely no memory of the nightmare commonly referred to as "Feeding Time."

Now I'm doubting myself as a parent because what kind of mother doesn't have a project timeline mapping out future food sources? Not to mention the fact that I'm experiencing early Alzheimer's because I have no clue how my two older children performed as infants. To make matters worse, even though I'm aware I'll more than likely have no memory of Cletus as an infant either, it's still not enough to motivate me to charge the video camera and purchase a new tape. All I keep thinking is, "I just want to go home and sleep; not navigate a parking lot and walk inside and up and down aisles and stand in line for forever and then have to unzip my purse to get money out." Shoot, I'm exhausted just thinking about it. The way I figure it, I need to get home, slide that rice in a bottle and hope to eek out a few hours of uninterrupted sleep as soon as I can get it. And that activity is just not that exciting to capture on video, so I'm good.

Comments

Becca said…
My experience with solid foods in both my kids was along the lines of: 1)Try a little cereal at six months-ish. 2)Feed them a jar of something once most days (when I remember) until they are old enough to eat table food (around 10 months). 3)Total free-for-all. And in the case of my second, there was step 4) notice that he just ate part of a peanut butter sandwich he found on the floor (at 9 months), declare him free of peanut allergies.
ooh. Rice in bottle. Good idea. We just gave Mia rice cereal tonight. And by we, it went like this. While I was making dinner, "Hey Jim. Could you give Mia some cereal? I've been meaning to do that." Him, "Yeah. K." We tried to take a photo, but were distracted by the poor table manners of the other two. Sucks to be the littlest, I guess.