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Well, ‘Dela, you’ve left the world of babydom and have gone on to bigger and better things. (Or at least mealier and pastier things.)Today you had your first mouthfuls of something other than Num Nums.
It took me 30 minutes in the Baby R Us food aisle last week to settle on traditional Gerber rice cereal. But it wasn’t an easy choice, and I bought two other boxes of whole grain organic rice – what I actually wanted to give you. But see you’re only 5 months old, and I feel like I’m already breaking the rules a little bit by starting you on solids before the prescribed half-year mark. So, just in case – despite all reassurances that the “wholeness” of the rice shouldn’t cause any problems – I opted to stick with the tried and true, traditional, brandname option. We’ll probably see how you handle it for a week or so before moving on to something else.
For the record, this is an exception. You will be eating whole grains, Baby. No white bread for you. Or at least only on occasion. Everybody’s gotta try Wonder Bread….to taste, but also to squish up into that miraculous quarter size ball of dough. Awesome. I haven’t done that in awhile. Makes me want to go buy a loaf. I wonder if it still does that?
But I digress.
You were immediately interested in the pretty blue and yellow box and watched curiously as your Daddy and I prepped your first semi-liquid (as opposed to all-liquid) meal. You knew just what to do when we started bringing that rubber-tipped spoon toward your mouth. You did the same thing you do with any object traveling toward your little pie hold. Open Wide.
In went the runny mess and out it came, squirting. Then, dribbling. After the initial shock you got a glassy look in your eyes and concentrated on working your tongue back and forth, seemingly trying to process the new sensory experience. You must have decided it was alright because even though you had a hard time figuring out how to swallow, you kept opening your little hanger for each new airplane.
After a few bites, you decided it was all a little too much and had a bit of a gagging spell during which you made about 500 different faces.
When it was all said and done you gave us big smiles, proud of the awesome job you did polishing off (I use the phrase “polishing off” lightly as you definitely wore quite a bit more than you ingested) your first big girl meal.
What should we try next? Apples, Pears, Avocado? Hmmm… This is so fun! But we’ll see what I think after I experience the contents of your next diaper. Maybe I’ll just have Daddy hold you for the next 24 hours.