At First You Hold Your Breath

Well, on the lighter side of things. I've been trying to teach Bear to eat fingerfoods by himself, meaning that he takes a Cheerio from my fingers and puts it in his mouth. We've pretty much got that down pat. However, be careful what you wish for. Now that this child knows how to "feed himself," he wants to take on the spoon. He now thinks that when the spoonful of baby food comes to his mouth, he's also supposed to grab the food from that and feed himself. Needless to say, mealtime is no longer a tidy occasion.

But I laugh, and laugh, and laugh some more. I was terrified that Bear would have all these feeding issues and continued to hold my breath as we did exercises for oral stimulation and worked to get him eating solids. Now, I'm just so glad for this mess.

All Bets are Off

Though I wouldn't like to admit it, I must confess that after reading books and hearing parents' testimonials, I held fairly low expectations for Bear's achievement of developmental milestones. However, with this child, all bets are off. Here he is at nine months eating baby food, feeding himself pieces of graham crackers and bananas, sitting with little to no assistance, and attempting to army crawl. Believe it or not, that's right on target with developmental milestones. This little booger is out to prove us all wrong. Love my little guy.