Houston, We Have Peas!

I think, of all of the baby milestones that Finn has on his list of to-dos, the introduction of baby food was the one I was anticipating the most. 

We are a family of food and the kitchen is our Mother Ship; it is our gathering point and our common ground.  We cook together, we plan meals together and we eat dinner together just about every night (unless someone - Uriah - has to work late).  Big discussions happen around the dinner table and smaller discussions happen over the stove.  It is small and warm and cozy in our kitchen.  It is what home is to me.

So, it only made sense that from the time Finn could sit up in his high chair, we would scoot him up to the table with us as we ate our dinner.  For awhile he was content to play with his toys and look around.  Then he started tossing his toys on the floor, looking surprised when suddenly his wooden spoon was no longer in his hand and then delighted when I'd place it back in front of him, only to repeat the process another hundred times during the course of our meal.  Recently, however, he has been reaching for the food on the table and moving his little mouth like he's chewing (super funny to watch).  It was the only sign I needed...bring on the baby food!

Uriah needed a little convincing, however, that Finn was ready for baby food.  I did some research before we started.  I wanted to make sure that Finn was going to enjoy this process and not end up a picky eater (my absolute worst nightmare, second only to breaking my nose.).  He started eating rice cereal during our Christmas vacation in Minnesota and we've been steadily increasing the consistency of it from liquid to that of oatmeal.  And then that got old and he wanted French toast.  Seriously, he would have eaten French toast last week if he had two teeth to his name. 

After some reading and some discussion (because our original plan was to wait for baby food until he had his 6 month check next week), we looked at our chunky monkey and decided to start the baby food.  Instead of starting off on the yellow vegetables (like a lot of research suggests),  we started with the greens.  Less sweet, but research also shows that some babies will like the sweeter veggies better (squash, sweet potatoes, carrots) and then it takes some convincing to get them to enjoy the greens (peas, beans, spinach).   Peas, my friends, were a huge success; and so is the sippy cup he's started using.  We've moved on to sweet potatoes, which he liked a lot, and later this week we'll try beans. 

{First taste of peas | 1.15.11}

{Sippy cup | 1.15.11}

 
He looks like such a big boy and he makes my cup run over.