Out of House and Home

When Calvin was born, I was set on doing things "the right way." This included, of course, making my own baby food. We delayed starting food until close to six months, and even then, he didn't get very much at first. I refused to give him that yucky rice cereal, and most everything he ate was lovingly cooked and pureed by yours truly, frozen in ice cube trays, and served only after he had had plenty of breastmilk. Calvin wasn't that interested in food, anyway, and didn't really catch onto eating until 7 or 8 months. The homemade baby food thing continued, though we did start feeding him some jarred food when we had to go out of town for two weeks.

With Hobbes, I was a little more laid back. I still made a lot of his food, but he received a good mix of homemade food, jarred food, a little rice cereal, and whatever he found on the floor from his brother. We started trying food at five months, but he didn't really catch onto the process until six or seven months.

Then came Linus. I should have known when he started watching us eat at one month old that we were in for it. I think I caved and let him lick a tortilla chip at three months. After that, he quickly zeroed in on anyone who was putting anything remotely edible in their mouth. So when he reverted to his newborn sleep habits a few weeks ago, I thought about giving him some food. I wasn't ready. After all, he wasn't even four months old yet.

Yesterday, at four and a half months, Linus decided it was time to eat, so I pulled out the rice cereal. (How the mighty have fallen...or just gotten real. No homemade food this time.) I put him in his bouncy seat and gave him a small bite, assuming he would push it out with his tongue, like most babies do at this age. Not Linus. That kid ate and ate and ate and gave a running commentary of squeals and oohs and aahs in between each bite. The same thing happened when I fed him some more at supper. The boy was in rice cereal heaven (which tastes an awful lot like cardboard, if you ask me).

Since it seemed to bother his stomach a bit, I wasn't going to feed Linus any cereal today. I figured it was good to introduce it slowly. But when I put him in his bouncy seat while I fixed his brothers' lunch, he wailed. Assuming he was tired, I told him I would get him soon and continued fixing lunch. Then I pulled out a small bowl like the one I had used for his cereal yesterday, and he suddenly stopped screaming and started squealing with excitement, tensed from head to toe.

"Would you like some cereal, Linus?"

Squeal. Squeal. Ooh. Ooh. Flailing arms.

I think that was "yes" in baby talk. He finished off two helpings, happily flailing and squealing the whole time, with almost all of the food actually making it to his mouth. I have never seen a baby this young eat like this. I think we could be in trouble. Time to stock up on the baby food.