not such an Angel

AngelBaby finally has a flaw. She has been such a perfect baby, so sweet and happy. She smiles easily, loves to cuddle and is hardly ever fussy. So other than the regular diaper explosions of epic proportion, she has been our AngelBaby.

And then we started solid food. Or tried at least. On the first night, I made her rice cereal with water and she was unimpressed. Then I started mixing it with milk and she ate it more willingly. That lasted for about five days and then she discovered how to blow raspberries. It's absolutely adorable and she tends to work herself into a laughing fit by doing them but it makes eating rather difficult. Most of the rice cereal ended up on me rather than in her. I tried making it thicker, making it thinner, giving her the binky immediately after each bite to help her swallow but she still manages to get most of it all over me and the tray. Sometimes we manage to get on a roll and she will actually ingest several bites but then she starts to gag and throw up.

So we tried different food. She refused the peas and happily sprayed them all over me (she thought it was hilarious and wouldn't stop laughing long enough to eat). She fumbled with the sweet potatoes, I even tried to thicken it with rice cereal but again, after several bites it just made her sick.

Both of our big girls took well to starting solids and AngelBaby shows signs of readiness (and she is six months old after all). But AngelBaby is either unimpressed/uninterested in doing anything more than showering me with it.

But we kept trying and finally, success! It took a long time. And it was messy. But she ate an entire jar of sweet potatoes. (well, what didn't get sprayed on me anyway) The next night, she did great as well. As an experiment, I tried rice cereal again and she didn't want to eat it. I manipulated her into it anyway and after a few tastes, she began to gag again until I thinned it some more.

In the end, I conclude that she doesn't like cereal. Especially if its too thick. And that dinner may forever include spit showers for mom. Or for now anyway.

p.s. A completely unrelated, second flaw is that she won't reach for me. She will reach for Daddy, Grandma, Grammy, her favorite toys and Papa. But not me. And she thinks its funny when I try.