Baby Food Wars

Feeding babies is a messy business. Crack open and take a taste of canned baby food and you won't have to wonder why so much of it comes shooting out of their mouths and down the front of their clothes, this is especially true of cereals. We have given up on bibs in our family and learned to feed baby naked. I don't use canned food so maybe I fare a little better. My peas are freshly cooked and pureed instead of canned. Having tasted both I like mine better and so far Nicholas agrees. There are however some observations I have made over the last two weeks as we've embarked on our solid foods journey. 

Some baby foods taste better than others and every baby is going to have their own likes and dislikes that are as individual as they are. Oatmeal baby cereal  tastes and smells a bit like cardboard and in fact it's color suggests that it might have been made partly out of cardboard. Add a little baby formula and you get a extremely bland make you want to barf sludge that you scrape off a bowl and proceed to smear all over your baby, yourself and any surrounding furniture as you try and shovel spoonfuls of the stuff into a tightly closed mouth that only opens every to express displeasure in the form of a loud wail. This is how breakfast at my house goes anyway. Or at least it did this morning. lol. Nicholas it seems does not like baby oatmeal all that much now that he has discovered veggies like peas and carrots. Ahh peas and carrots, now those are some great foods for baby. Unlike oatmeal which smells a little weird and sticks to baby in a crusty layer even after wiping with a baby wipe, peas and carrots come off baby easily. Not so much on laundry. Carrots STAIN! OMG! They even stain the bowl and the spoon. We had an adorable green baby spoon with the rubberized color changing part. Well green color changing is no more, now it is a muddy carrot induced brownish color. How nice. So much for cute right. Oh well, function is what is important so it's OK I suppose. What is not as OK is the fact that occasionally baby's spit up after they eat and when their last meal included carrots you may was well just throw away the shirt. Gross. Carrot spit up is also not the most fun thing to scrub off the floors and get out of your hair. Yeah you read it right, I had carrot colored spit up in my hair. yummm, Bleh!

Another interesting observation is that not all baby spoons are created equal. What is brightly colored and comes in a pack of a million isn't always better than the munchkin four pack that looks a little plain. The right baby spoon is a must to keep baby clean and avoid external injury. Brightly colored spoons caught Nicholas' attention all right which may be the point but in our case was a hindrance. What was supposed to be an awwwww cute look his first taste of food turned into a no no let go wrestling match Mommy VS Nicholas over the spoon. Fun. Cereal and drool everywhere. Super fun. We have it on video which I posted on facebook. Somebody observed that it looked like he was trying to bite me for the spoon, and he kind of was. We switched to short metal handled spoon with little rubber ends. Those were much easier to get in the mouth and were less colorful so he wasn't as interesting in trying to take them away from me and the bowls of the spoon are shallow and easier to use in general. Those also pose less of a risk of eye injury since they handles are so much shorter. Always handy, now we know Nicholas will grow up with both eyes intact. So I have learned that with baby spoons you need a short handle and a shallow bowl.

Sometimes feeding goes well and he eats quickly and cleanly, those are the good days. On the other days, which are more frequent feeding is a little more of a challenge :) Nicholas is easy to distract and he loses interest in food when the dogs gather around under his booster seat. That happens a lot because they have figured out that food is involved and in the case of the poodles they know they can reach the baby and often try and lick his tray or his face which is a no no. They love it and Nicholas thinks it's funny but well... it's gross lol. Plus then it get in the dog's hair and makes more of a mess for me to clean up. It's messy enough as it is. Ha ha feeding a baby looks easier than it is. Just tonight in fact my sister claimed she could easily feed Nicholas carrots without getting it anywhere. Uh hu... He sneezed into his spoon and carrot puree went flying. Clean? Nope. He did eat the rest of he carrots with little problem and even ate all of his peas but he did need a good wipe down when he was finished. part of what causes some of the mess is the fact that little mouths occasionally decide they just done want to open and close themselves at appropriate times. I find myself with a baby like this. I go to give him the spoon only to have him just sit there starring at me lovingly with a little drool running down his chin. Adorable yes, helpful... ehh not really. I haven't yet resorted to the 'ol "airplane" please god just open your mouth and eat this move... yet. Really he's to young for it to make sense to him anyway. However, sometimes I catch myself trying get him to open his mouth wide by opening my mouth as I approach with the spoon. I can't help it, it just happens. Kind of shocks me but there is almost some supernatural force pulling on my jaw causing me to do it... I swear there is.. no really... somebody please believe me! :P Maybe that is what some people mean when they say that some aspects of parenthood come naturally. Diaper duty and nursing sure didn't. I just hope nobody walks in the room and catches me mouth wide open trying to spoon green goo into my son. I'll never live in down I'm sure.

Our adventures with food are just beginning but already we have tons of fun experiences and as we introduce new foods and begin to try mixes and new textures I'm sure we'll have many more misadventures :)