Last week at covenant group Maria was intently watching everyone eat and at one point tried to swipe a bread stick out of my hand! That's when I decided to start giving her real food in addition to her usual diet of "happy juice" (breast milk). Since happy juice requires no preparation, no cleanup, almost no extra packing when traveling and is virtually free, I hadn't been looking forward to complicating our lives with real food. But raising a child definitely isn't all about what's convenient for me, so I grudgingly bought some brown rice cereal and attempted the first feeding on Thursday.
Yes, feeding solids is horribly messy, but to my surprise I found that it's also completely hilarious and loads of fun when in the right mood! Maria made crazy faces, tried to bite the spoon and promptly evicted all of the rice cereal from her mouth with her tongue after every attempt. Things went about the same on the second day, but I discovered that she loves to play with the bowl and spoon. I'm going to give rice cereal one more try and then conclude that she just doesn't like the stuff. I tried some out of curiosity and it's pretty nasty... rather like bland, gloppy glue. Maybe she'll like pureed veggies better.
