Food woes...
Henry's entered a whole new realm of eating behavior, and unfortunately he's dragged me along with him because apparently I'm his mom and I have to go there whether I want to or not.
Henry's always been a pretty good eater. He wasn't fussy about what you gave him, as long as you gave it to him. As soon as the food would come out, his mouth would fly open and we couldn't shovel it in fast enough. The only road block we happened upon was convincing him that food with any kind of texture wasn't going to kill him, but thanks to Dave's perseverance, he's now eating all sorts of chunky foods. As you can tell, we've been spoiled.
The problem began right before we moved to Salem. Henry'd eat a bit, but not the vast quantities that he usually ate. By the time we moved here, he'd eat a few bites and then turn away, his mouth clamped shut. The morning Dave left to go back to Lewisburg for a week and a half, I chopped up some of the chicken sausage and pancakes I was having for breakfast and gave them to Henry. Down the hatch they went. There was much rejoicing. That was quickly followed by much panicking because it was obvious he wanted to feed himself and frankly I'm the most uncreative person you can imagine when it comes to food. I can barely put together a meal for myself, much less try to figure out finger foods for a kid. Plus, Henry's a voracious gagger so I'm vaguely terrified to give him food period. It was a very good time for Dave to leave, from Dave's point of view, but not so much from mine.
The next day I discovered that if I distracted him with a toy, he'd eat as much as I could give him. That's been working for the last few weeks, however, less and less reliably so. I knew when I discovered the toy trick that it's days were numbered, but I figured it would buy me enough time to find out what other people feed their kids and I could go from there. Since then I have discovered the following: Henry loves feeding himself grilled cheese and bread in general; he also loves crackers in bunny, goldfish, or oyster form. He does not love touching vegetables or fruit. Sounds like the makings of a great diet, yes?
Yesterday I was looking through the archives on ask moxie and she suggested letting kids graze. Her idea was putting bits of different foods in an ice cube tray and letting them take what they want. I thought that was a pretty good idea, except Henry's penchant for picking things up and flinging them onto the floor would make for a very happy dog and a very unhappy mom.
I have this sneaking suspicion that what's going on with Henry has less to do with the food, and more to do with something else, not that I have any clue what that something else is. I'm the absolute worst at reading my kid. I am, however, decent at reading other people's kids. It's like how I'm very good at seeing what colors look best on other people, but can't for the life of me tell what looks good on myself. Anyway, today at lunch I put Henry in his chair and tried to give him some food and he absolultey, positively, was no way in hell going to eat. Uh-uh. No way. Forget it. He gave me a look that said "You'd have better luck parting the water in Salem harbor than getting me to open my mouth and eat that stuff you call food". I was devastated because I had cleverly spread vegetables on a piece of bread and cut it up (another idea from moxie), thinking he'd love it because it was his beloved bread. I was wrong. After much fussing, I finally took him out of his chair and plopped him on the floor. He played for a minute then wandered back over to his chair. I don't know why, but I stuck a piece of bread on his seat and lo and behold, he reached up, grabbed it, and shoved it in his mouth. Then I put a few pieces on the seat next to me and he came over and ate a few, then went off and played, then came back and ate a few more. Then I remembered I had taken out some applesauce for him. I said "Henry, would you like some applesauce?" and he crawled over to the bench, stood up, and made like a baby bird. I spoonfed him the entire bowl. Then he ate some more bread with veggies on it, then some crackers, then he was done. Success!
Maybe it's an independence thing? He wants to eat on his own terms? The only downside was having a baby with pea-covered fingers crawling back and forth over a taupe carpet. You can imagine what the aftermath looked like. After lunch there was much scrubbing.