I am slowly disposing of a box of cheerios very slowly.
Every day I put ten or twenty on Ronan’s breakfast tray and he eats some and
drowns the rest in milk. (One of his favorite mealtime events is shaking the
milk out of his sippy cup all over everything – me, the floor, the food,
himself.) The drowning victims end up in the garbage.
Determining how much food to feed him is something akin to
winning a horse race. I’ve learned a lot about how much to give him with the
solid food, and he always changes the rules and surprises me. He liked beans,
until we started giving them to him regularly. Now he ignores them. He hated
Dr. Broner’s spinach pancakes until he didn’t. He likes ice cream
only if dogs eat it first.
I try to give him only the food I think he will eat, maybe a
little less. Still, what he eats on Monday is no indication of what he will eat
on Tuesday. I think we’re making progress; at first he wouldn’t eat any solid
food, including cheerios (Mothers everywhere: “What?!? Won’t eat cheerios!
Perish the thought!). Now he’s eating mostly the foods we eat, with additional
smashing, ripping or slicing, and instead of six jars of pureed baby food, he’s
only eating less than two. Soon he will off the purees and eating solid food
entirely. It’s the end of babyhood and the beginning of toddlerhood. God help
us.