Thursday, October 22, 2009

Swallowing razor blades

Biscuit loves to eat. It’s a fact.

If he sees you making a bottle or you strap him in his high chair, you better be ready to stick something in his mouth. Otherwise, he will whine and fuss and holler like he’s never eaten in his life.

The funny thing is that he has so much patience with pretty much everything else. But not food.

So I assumed that he would be raring to go when it came time to let him start trying finger foods. I was wrong!

The first time I tried to give him one of the little puffs that are specifically made for babies who are just starting to eat real food, he gagged and choked, and I finally had to yank him out of his seat and beat him on the back until he spit it up (the puff and half his lunch).

It rattled my nerves way more than it rattled him, so I had to wait a little while before we tried something like that again.

So now that he has four teeth with two more on the way, I figured he was ready. Wrong again!

I’ve tried to give him mashed potatoes, squished banana, bread crumbs and a few other things, but he wanted none of it. He gagged and licked his tongue out and made horrible faces, pretty much like I was asking him to swallow razor blades.

So I bought some of the Level 3 baby food to try. It has the same flavors he’s used to, but the consistency is thicker and even has a few tiny chunks of pasta and veggies.

The first couple of jars were rough. But then I started sending them to day care and giving them to him for dinner. Between all of us, I think we’re finally seeing some progress.

This past Monday night, I baked him a sweet potato and put some butter and cinnamon on it. He ate about five bites of it. I had made a spaghetti squash with garlic and parmesan for Jeff and me, so I figured, why not, and gave him a few pieces of that. I could tell his was a little freaked out by it, but he ate it just fine. I can’t tell you how excited I am at the prospect of this kid loving garlic like Jeff and I do! So then Jeff broke off a few little shreds of broccoli and gave them to him. He chewed a little bit and swallowed it right down.

Biscuit can’t move up to the next class at day care until he eats table food, so it’s making me feel better that he’s making progress.

Maybe next week we’ll feed him some pizza and a steak!

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