Gotta Have-o Avocado
Baby Juliette had her first solid food yesterday. After weeks of sitting at the table with us (on Becoming-A-Dad’s lap) and reaching for our foods, we decided we’d try giving her something to eat. After some quick thought, we decided to give her some nice ripe avocado.
We spent a few minutes running around – getting the video and digital cameras handy, cleaning the baby feeding spoons that were still in their package and getting the avocado. When all was in place, little Juliette was seated safely on Becoming-A-Mom’s lap.
After putting a bit of the mashed avocado on the spoon, Becoming-A-Mom brought the spoon up to baby Juliette. In her excitement, Juliette kept flailing and grabbing at the spoon, so Becoming-A-Mom had to hold her hands away. Juliette opened her mouth right on cue and – GULP – took a mouthful of the avocado. Becoming-A-Dad sat there with the video camera filming away as Juliette rolled the food around in her mouth a bit, then swallowed.
Almost instantly she reached out to grab Becoming-A-Mom’s hand and pull the spoon in for seconds! And for the next few minutes it was a steady process of loading up the spoon and then carefully directing it past Juliette’s grabbing hands into her waiting open mouth. If the delivery wasn’t fast enough for Juliette, she’d let us know by grumbling and complaining.
After about a tablespoon of avocado pulp we thought we’d better stop. After all, that’s what all the baby books and internet parenting resources say. But Juliette was having none of that! She howled so we kept spooning it into her until finally she stopped opening her mouth to the spoon.
She ate about 1-1/2 tablespoons of food and seemed very pleased with herself. Not too much splatter either!
So that was the excitement for yesterday. Mmmmm! Avocado!
(she had her usual breast-milk top-up just before bedtime… and slept for 5 hours in a row for the first time in the last 3 weeks. She only woke up for 2 feedings last night instead of the usual 3. Becoming-A-Mom seemed very happy about that!)
