I am no longer a closet eater.
Now that my 5-month-old daughter has started solids, I can eat
out in the open guilt-free.
I am no longer a closet eater.
Now that my 5-month-old daughter has started solids, I can eat out in the open guilt-free.
Before Emma had her first bite of rice cereal, she watched me closely every time I ate. Her eyes never strayed from my face when I nibbled on a pretzel, bit into a sandwich or sipped from a glass.
I learned to eat on the sly while she was playing. If I happened to be eating while I was holding her, I would shake her rattle in the opposite direction then take a quick bite before she noticed. But our daughter’s a smarty-pants, and I wasn’t fooling anyone.
At dinnertime, she stared longingly at my husband, Chris, and I when we loaded up our plates and dug in. At the coffee shop, after I ordered a latte and scone, she looked up at me expectantly as if to ask, “Where’s mine?”
“Real” food wasn’t completely foreign to her, though. At Grandma’s house, she was treated to little bits of potato, bread and water. Grandma started feeding her morsels of this and that. You know Grandmas – they love to indulge their grandbabies. I can hear my mom now, “That’s what Grandmas are for!” she likes to remind me.
Although Emma may have been ready to eat solids, I wasn’t ready. Our little baby was growing up too fast. She’s already rolling over and is only a couple months away from crawling. I wanted to hold onto everything that makes her a baby as long as I could.
“It can’t be time yet,” I told my husband and I scoured my baby books looking for an explanation as to when infants are ready to start solids.
Emma fit the profile – she could hold her head up, sit upright and seemed interested when we ate. Heck, she all but took the fork out of our hands and fed herself.
Then, finally, one day last week I got my biggest clue that Emma was indeed ready for solids when I handed her a dog biscuit to give to our miniature dachshund, Lucy. Instead of handing it over to Lucy, Emma opened her mouth, ready to sink her gums into the milk bone. Lucy’s jaw dropped.
The next day, I stocked up on rice cereal and prepared her first helping. The first thing I noticed is that it’s not exactly solid. On the contrary, it has the consistency of really runny pudding. I hoped Emma would think it tasted better.
I buckled her in her high chair then brought the first spoonful of yummy cereal to her mouth. She opened wide. The cereal went in then it ran out. I tried again, but the same thing happened. So I tried dropping a spoonful onto her tongue. She lapped it up and it went down the hatch.
“Yummm,” I said enthusiastically as I scraped the cereal off her chin. Emma wagged her arms up and down and opened her mouth wide. And wouldn’t you know it, she ate every last runny bite of cereal. My daughter is an expert eater.
I wonder what else she can eat. Suddenly, I feel like I’m a little girl with a new doll. I look up baby food recipes, excited to begin making concoctions for our little one. But I know that will happen all in good time.
For now, she’s content to eat drippy rice cereal. And I can eat my square of chocolate or drink my cup of coffee out in the open now. She doesn’t know what she’s missing.
