Growing, growing, grown

Biscuit was born three weeks early, and I never knew three weeks could make such a difference. He's been a little behind in size and development since he got here.

The doctor told us that at some point during his first year, he would probably hit a couple of growth and developmental spurts. He said he'd probably pick up weight quickly and would conquer several physical feats all at once.

I'm wondering if this is the week.

Last week, Biscuit was taking about five or six bottles each day, plus a jar of baby food for lunch and one for dinner. Yesterday, he had a jar of food for breakfast, one for lunch, one for an afternoon snack and two, count 'em two jars for dinner. From two jars a day to five in just a few days!

I enjoyed feeding him the first few times. He made awful faces, and I had to feed him each bite three or four times. Babies are born with an involuntary tongue thrust that pushes out anything they think doesn't belong in their mouths. So in other words, if they put something in their mouths, it's fine. Everything else comes right back out!

The day care teachers asked if I wanted them to start him on baby food. They said that some parents let the day care staff teach their babies to eat. I knew they would be better at teaching him than me, but I was really enjoying watching him learn to do something new.

But honestly, after several times of feeding and refeeding Biscuit, then hosing him down afterwards, I was ready to let the teachers have a crack at it.

Within a couple of days, you could hold a spoonful of food in front of Biscuit, and he would drop that jaw with his mouth wide open.

Now that he has the hang of it, it's pretty easy to feed him. The problem now is that you can't get it in him quick enough. As he sits in his chair, if you don't get the food in his mouth fast enough, he will start to lean over toward the jar. It's pretty funny to watch him. I guess he figures the closer he is to the jar, the quicker it will get to his mouth!

I'm guessing that when I was a kid, there were probably one, maybe two levels of baby food. Probably pureed stuff, then pureed stuff that was a little chunkier. It's not so simple anymore.

Biscuit has been on Level 1 food so far, which is just veggies or fruit and water pureed together. They told us to start him on veggies first because if he had sweet fruit first, he might not take to the veggies. I can't say as I would blame him. Who would want soupy peas when you could have yummy bananas?

I went to Target tonight to get him some Level 2 stuff. You wouldn't believe the variety he'll have now. Level 1 included peas, green beans, butternut squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, applesauce, pears, bananas and prunes. With Level 2, they start getting creative. He'll get to try banana mango, green beans with brown rice, apple blueberry, sweet potatoes with apples and more. Some of the combos sound a little questionable to me, but hey, if he likes it, I'll feed it to him.

Biscuit's little growth spurt has led to a bigger size diapers and several outfits that are now in the give-away bag. It's good to see him flourishing, but can't he just slow down a little bit?