The Boy Loves Food

From left to right: Spencer enjoying his bowl while Momma feeds him cereal. Spencer in control of life, enjoying zwieback toast. Then Spencer all done and all messy.

Our plans from the get go was to wait until he was 6 months old to introduce solids. Thought we'd give his digestive system a good amount of time to develop. Thought we didn't need to add that routine into the day any sooner than necessary. Then there are the allergy and obesity concerns. We don't really know enough about the donor's history to rule out allergy concerns and obesity is a strong thread in my family. All this to say we were planning on waiting until he was 6 months of age. But we'd keep an eye on his developmental cues and factor those into the decision.

The boy had a different agenda. At nearly 5 months old it was clear to us that he was ready for solids so we began to give him rice cereal at dinner time. He totally loved it. It was fascinating watching him learn how to move the cereal in his mouth. He has such an internal clock that it was clear from the get go that we had started something. At 6pm, he is ready for his cereal and he lets you know. Don't even think about skipping a night! We continued this for a solid month, and he seemed satisfied. Until recently.

As you may have gathered over the past several posts, the boy is frustrated and conflicted. Saturday it escalated. Not only is he teething and on the verge of real mobility, he seemingly needs some control in his life. Ahhh, it is starting already. It appears to us that he is really needing something he can control, something that he can gnaw the crap out of... preferably paper but us moms' won't let him really dig into that, and preferably none of the toy's he's already gnawed the crap out of. So on Saturday Mommy, Ellie, and Spencer take a trip to the store and bought zwieback toast. AHA, we found a winner. The boy was in heaven. He sat and gnawed on the thing like a popsicle. When it got dangerously small, we swapped it out for a fresh one and he was good to go.

Then last night we added in his first vegetable, squash. He didn't love it, but he didn't spit it out either. We shall see what he thinks after a few more nights of it.

Hopefully with these additions he'll be more satisfied with his food and less interested in ours. You've got to be quick; he's got a strong and long reach.