High (chair) cuisine

So Holly's been at this eating solids thing for about three weeks and last night was the first time that she actually seemed to get it. The food generally went in her mouth, but much of it just came right back out again. One morning she found it amusing to store it in her cheeks chipmunk-style until I picked her up to nurse before I left for work when she spit sweet potato out on the shirt I was planning to wear to work that day. Most every meal before last night meant that the majority of the food ended up on her bib, high chair tray and the floor. While still far from a clean eater, Holly does seem to be getting more into swallowing the food. She is also getting really into the idea of the spoon. I was using my finger for a while (since some theories hold that the spoon can be distracting) but yesterday she started grabbing the spoon and shoving it in her mouth herself.

So far Holly has enjoyed the following foods:

• bananas (yum yum)
  
• sweet potatoes (not so much)
• butternut squash (not so much)
• avocados (yum yum)
• pears (MORE PLEASE!)

If we're not also eating the food ourselves (in slightly different format), I generally freeze the leftovers using Baby Cubes. One sweet potato provided 4 baby-sized servings. For practical reasons, we've moved her one meal per day to dinner---it's closer to bath time and I now dress for the occasion. I've also started double bibbing, to save her clothes from the mess. We plan to move her up to more meals a day, but we're doing it slowly. The books all say she doesn't really need the nutrition from solids right now. The idea is to introduce the concept of eating but the majority of her calories should continue to come from breast milk for a while yet.

We've been having fun times! I love watching her experience food for the first time! I love watching her play in the bowl and stare at me in wonder when there is something tasty in her mouth. All our recipes (if you can call it than when you squish something up) are from the website Chelsea sent me. As you can guess based on the above ratings, pears are Holly's absolute favorite. I mixed and matched a bit as well. Most of the thicker foods above were mixed with a little breast milk, thinner foods were mixed with a bit of rice cereal. I mixed up some bananas with sweet potato. I squished some bananas with rice cereal and breast milk. I think it's important to keep cuisine interesting. We are---after all---from the "foodiest small town in America". Bon Appetit!