One-Man Food Fight

Let’s face it.

Feeding a baby is gross.

And by face it, I mean rub it all over our faces, put it anywhere but inside our mouths, and hope that some nutrition is absorbed through our pores.  At least, that’s seems to be my darling child’s interpretation of “face it.”  As in:

“Elijah, open your mouth so I can spoon some mush into it.”
“No, Mom, I’d rather face it.”

In the past few weeks we have progressed from total body coverage to mainly face/bib/hand/spoon, but it’s still a messy, messy business, this baby feeding.

Also, somehow this little person, who 7 months ago wasn’t even breathing oxygen, has an opinion about food, measured by how many bites he will eat.  Peaches are clearly God’s gift to the palate.  Squash rates a few bites, 3 or 4, unless mixed with the blessed peaches.  Green beans are a two-biter, and mango is a one-bite, “what the heck is this”-face-spit-it-all-back-out-kind of dish.  I will say, that particular mango was a little tart, but you’d think he could have said “No, thank you,” rather than spraying it all over my shirt.

He is frustrated that I won’t let him “feed” himself, evident in his attempts to grab the spoon, bowl, and my sandwich.  Little does he know that if he got what he wanted, he might not be as frustrated, but he would be really hungry.  Then again, I hear mango makes a great topical skin treatment.

He has now tried not only an assortment of produce, but also several types of Indian food, some fancy-pants soup from Sweetgreen and lemon-ginger tea.  It pains me to say, though, that his favorite thing so far was a canned Campbell’s soup with frightening “meatballs” floating in it.  I could tell it was his favorite because he would yell until I gave him the next bite, and he hardly let any of it go to waste.  Wish I could say the same for his hair gel green beans. By the way, my husband ended up eating the rest of the frozen mango puree.   Elijah better like tomatoes, though, or we may have an actually food fight on our hands.  Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure I know who’d win. After all, he’s had the most practice.

*Note: A version this post appeared in my personal blog.