Baby Food

Ellie has been excited with every new milestone of babydom that Nate has paseed through. She smiled when he learned to smile, laughed when he rolled over, pushed him over when he learned to situp and has eagerly taken to his next landmark: baby food.

Before Nate was born, we coached Ellie on what Nate was allowed to eat. "Ellie, can Nate eat cookies?" To which she would reply, "Nooooooooo, only milk." 5 months came and we bought Nate his first box of baby cereal. Ellie watched up mix up the cereal as we explained that Nate could now eat baby food. Ellie nodded and told us that only babies eat baby food and along we went feeding Nate mashed up food with Ellie showing little interest. Until last week.

Dustin was out of town and Ellie and Nate were driving me a little batty. I think they secretly decided to not take a single nap the entire time he was gone. So by Friday, my patience was worn thin. We were at the water park for playgroup and Nate was once again not taking a nap, despite DESPERATELY needing one, so I pulled out the Cherrioes I had brought for Ellie and started feeding them to him. Of course he loved them, but Ellie wasn't so happy about Nate starting to encroach on her food eating territory. Something in her little 3 year old mind clicked and she decided that if Nate was going to eat her food, she would just eat his.

Saturday morning, as Nate is eating his bowl of cereal, Ellie decides that she would like a bite. She comes over, we stick a big old mouth full in and her little nose scrunches up. Refusing to swallow it, she looks for a hand to spit it into. You would think she'd go spit it in the trash when no hand was offered, but no, she continues to sit there with this blob of goo. Finally we convince her to go spit it in the toilet as she tells us, "This is NOT good."

Later that same morning, we bought Nate some of those Veggie Puffs at Target (we like to call them sugar puffs since sugar comes BEFORE sweet potatoes on the ingredients list). As we're back on the road headed to IKEA, Nate starts to fuss, so we hand Ellie a few Veggie Puffs and ask her to give it to Nate. One promptly goes into her mouth. "Yuuuuuuummmmmmm! These are good!" she says as she stuffs the rest of her handful in her mouth. And so the trip to IKEA continues. One for Nate, two handfuls for Ellie. "I like THESE."

And so Ellie learned -- solid food good, mushy food bad. You should see how quickly she runs away when we offer her some smushed up peas, but at the same time we'll find her roaming the hall with the Wagon Wheels (if you had a 6 month old, you would know the names of all the "Babies First Food" line too). The good news is, Nate likes to share and he doesn't care all that much. Food is food (smushed up peas and all) and as long as some is being constantly shoveled into his mouth, he doesn't care what percentage Ellie's taking off the top.

On a side note. Ellie is now a lot less careful about the food she gives Nate. The other night, Nate was laying on the floor fussing while I was trying to do some dinner dishes. I asked Ellie to talk to him and keep him happy. For a few minutes she's over there until suddenly I notice it's completely silent. No Ellie yapping and no Nate screeching. Ellie has gone off to her room to play and Nate is happy on his belly on the floor. So I finish the dishes, clean the counters, mop the floors, go over to get Nate and what do I find? A very happy and slobbering Nate, who was lying on the floor sucking on a cookie his sister had given him to keep him entertained. Thanks Ellie!