Thursday, January 24, 2008

It's Like There's A Party in My Mouth And Everyone's Invited

My daughter is approaching 7 months in age. And the inevitable questioning about what she's eating and how much is she eating and how often she is eating have been dogging me for weeks. We haven't really taken the time to properly introduce solid foods yet. A few finger fulls of rice here, a mushy banana bite there... she's our third child. We're just happy she hasn't figured out how to download inappropriate web material yet. And frankly, the last few times we stuck food stuffs in her mouth she just made a funny face like we'd spiked her food with lemon juice and spat it out.

So the short answer to the how/what/when of solid foods is nothing, zip, nada. Thus far, her and I have found breast is best. That is until this afternoon.

Today my little girl discovered the delicious sensory symphony that is the Cheese Nip, and she is forever changed. Now, before you condemn me as a bad mom polluting her pristine and untainted child with processed snack food I just wanna say she was never pristine and untainted; again, she's our third child. The crud she's gummed off her brothers' dirty little boy hands has probably inoculated her against all major infections and exposed her to toxins best left a mystery.

But back to the Cheese Nip... I was myself enjoying a post-afternoon activity/pre-dinner snack of coffee and Cheese Nips, surfing the net with my little girl bouncing on my knee, when I noticed the look of great desire on my little ones face. She was watching so intently and longingly as I pulled a cracker out of the box, she followed the cracker, mouth open, droll spilling over her plump lip, as the Cheese Nip made the journey from the box to my mouth. What could I do? She clearly wanted one so bad. So I broke off a cracker piece and held it up to her mouth. Never with such enthusiasm has she pulled my hand to her mouth. She was clearly very excited by the opportunity to at last eat something she'd seen everyone else eat. When the sweet, salty snack first went into her mouth she looked puzzled. Unsure what to make of the weird crunching it made when her little teeth pressed on the flaky goodness. But then, her eyes lit up and her little legs began kicking. Once her taste buds registered the exaggerated taste of processed cheddar cheese baked into a refined wheat flour cracker her world of food sensations was blown wide open. She sucked and gummed that bit of cracker until it oozed out the corner of her mouth. Then she grunted for more.

It’s good to be a third child.

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