Spoon Feeding in the Long Run Teaches Us Nothing But the Shape of the Spoon

E.M. Forster said it, FFM's buying it. No more spoon feeding in this house. Only occasionally, and only if FFM is holding his own spoon. I finally figured it out this weekend, after a week of tantrum filled meals, which is REALLY unusual for us. Meals have always been smooth sailing (except for the spraying bit, but that passed a while back and really was only messy, he still ate like a champ). All of a sudden meals became a nightmare, with very little actually getting eaten, and FFM obviously still hungry by the time I'd give up. He'd literally clamp his mouth shut and shove the spoon away, food flying across the kitchen.

Then the lightbulb came on...he loves these crackers that I give him to snack on when we're out and about, and often I let him munch on one while I'm getting dinner ready. Parts of meals he could feed himself would always go smoothly, it was only the spoon feeding bits that were rough. Today, pretty much all meals were self-fed and he's much happier. And fuller. Now I just have to figure out what to feed him that his four tiny teeth and sturdy gums can chew up without choking.

And nope-we're not cutting that shaggy hair. Going to let it keep growing. It's just too durn pretty. Plus we're still just astounded at it's blonde-ness that we want to enjoy it.

Other big news, bottles are on their way OUT! I'm ecstatic about this. In come various forms of sippy cups, apparently our little man feels that water and baby milk (formula, we started calling it baby milk after noting that's what it was called on our grocery receipts in Dublin) need to come in different types of cups. Water in a cup with a spout (a type available only in the US of course) and milk out of a sippy with straw-available both here and in US (yay!). We did OK all week, but Thursday FFM turned the corner and drank the equivalent of both daytime bottles out of sippies. For the afternoon one he sat on the kitchen floor, using one leg to turn himself around in circles, it was hilarious.I gave FFM a book to read while I was getting ready one morning, and he got really engrossed in the book/mirror combo. I grabbed the camera to take a cute picture and when he noticed me the suddenly looked up and started hamming it up for the camera! Jabbering away and giggling and smiling. This weekend we took a day trip a couple hours up the coast to check out some towns we haven't been to yet. One is Eumundi which has a famous market, it was definitely worth the trip. Once we arrived and parked in the grassy parking lot Travis determined that FFM needed what our friend Dave would call an 'al fresco' pit stop. It cracked me up, watching all those little limbs waving away in this grassy parking lot, so I took a photo that FFM will surely be embarrassed about one day as we show it to his future girlfriends.