Baby Girl is now in the "I must feed myself" stage (which will last for the next 18 years, according to my mother).
It started out with rice krispies. Noticing that Baby Girl can find (and pick up) every microscopic piece of lint on the carpet, I thought "ah ha! I will engage her fine motor skills in picking up finger food to help pacify her while I cook dinner." Out came the rice krispies - small, easily eaten with no teeth (she now has two that are half-way in, but still hasn't figured out what use they serve other than to run her finger over repeatedly) and portable.
Baby Girl LOVES rice krispies and picks them up one by one to eat them.
It also keeps her occupied, when her dinner is not quite ready at the same time she is.
So I started to experiment with foods that would keep her occupied - and expand outside of the cold cereal genre. Tofu rolled in cereal dust, steamed pieces of mango, peach or pear, pancakes made with baby oatmeal, cinnamon and nutmeg ... and, oatmeal. OATMEAL?!
It was all fine until she decided that oatmeal was definitely not food fit for a spoon and was definitely in the "finger food" category.
Tonight, in the course of 45 minutes, I had to feed Baby Girl, make and bake a dozen chocolate/cream cheese/chocolate chip cupcakes, load and start the dishwasher and dash to a quilting event at church (yes, I know, what was I thinking? But I love quilts).
So I gave up on feeding her with a spoon, mixed a few pureed peaches in, globbed finger-sized blobs on her tray and let her feed herself.
Three hours later, while putting her to bed, I was still discovering bits of dried (read: cement-like) oatmeal - in her hair, her diaper, between her fingers, on her socks, down her pants ... along with bits of dried peach in her eyelashes and a smear of chocolate on the side of her face where I apparently inadvertently transferred cupcake batter at one point.
Then I saw her high chair.
I don't think I'll be feeding her oatmeal until she's figured out how to use a spoon. The sight of that high chair makes me want to run away screaming.
1 comment:
Ha ha ha - Poor Gianna. You aren't getting anywhere with that mama of yours are you. She just doesn't get that she should just let you take over the kitchen entirely.
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