People Food

I remember the night it started. I can clearly remember the distress I felt the night my two-month-old screamed at the top of his lungs as I tried, unsuccessfully, to feed him for over an hour. In the end, we were both crying, and I put him to bed without having managed to get anything in him, certain he would wake up and let me know when he was hungry. But he slept through the night (because all my babies are awesome like that when it comes to sleep), and the next morning I set off on what would become a marathon of doctors' visits to figure out why the heck this baby wouldn't eat.

He continued to eat poorly, and throw up often, for the next few months. But gradually, so much so that I hardly think of it until someone asks how he's doing, he's been improving this summer. And whatever his issues were, they seem to be resolving themselves. All the prayers and food experiments are paying off, and now instead of a Bad Eater, I have, simply, an Eater.

A real Georgia peach-eating, pasta-loving eater. He enjoys fish sticks and chicken nuggets with his siblings, and frequently steals bites from his mom and dad's plates. Not only does he no longer like the lovely pureed vegetables I worked so hard on, but he insists on doing everything in his power to make sure I do not feed him, and that I eventually give up and hand him solid food that he can feed to himself. Flailing, flapping and blowing raspberries are some of his favorite food-mush avoidance tricks. And he's really, really good at them. He's not the cleanest eater out there (what eight-month-old is?) but he's got a pincer grip that works just fine and seems to be about 80% effective in getting the food into his mouth. His success rate improves if the food in question is a lemon cookie or an Oreo.

I'll take broccoli florets all over the floor and peach juice running down his clothes over the screaming and spitting up any day.