My Funny, Funny Family

Well, a good 2 weeks before she turned 6 months, Filbertine just ate food. Well, to be precise, she ate a tablespoon of breast milk with less than a teaspoon of instant baby cereal dissolved in it*. She seemed pleased with the experience, opened her mouth willingly and even eagerly for it. She stopped opening her mouth a little over halfway through the bowl, so then we stopped.

I was set against starting early, despite Fil's escalating grabbing and cries of frustration every time she saw us eating. But Epu said she was obviously more than ready and insisted we go out and buy some cereal over the weekend.

The actual launch of solids consumption was then delayed almost a week because I didn't know where the box holding the breast pump might be. I still don't. Today I managed to just squeeze out some milk just because the baby slept in (until 9!) and it got so full it just started spraying out. But now I'd better find that thing or I will have a heck of a time providing cereal feedings on a consistent basis.

In other good consumption news, on the advice of our new pediatrician we gave Fil a sippy cup with a little water in it, and she loves trying to drink from it. She doesn't get much out so far, but she gets some. This is the light at the end of the tunnel** for me, because I can now envision a day when she drinks a sippy full of expressed breast milk and I go out for the evening with Epu. Can you imagine?

* Not the kind that was recalled. The organic version was recently recalled, but they didn't have organic at Jewel so we were stuck with the apparently non-life-threatening regular baby oatmeal. By the way, they had about 5 varieties of baby instant oatmeal at the store, and only one of them didn't say "contains wheat." WTF? They know that people are buying this stuff as a first food, and that introducing wheat is not advised until later. Why would they add wheat to their oatmeal? I'm guessing it has to do with all the vitamins they're fortifying it with. The one I bought did have soy oil in it, which I didn't appreciate. I might just try putting regular oatmeal in the food processor instead of using this fortified stuff.

** It's the nicest, cuddliest tunnel I've ever been in.