Saturday, October 16 was Roxi's first foray into the wonderful world of solid food. I was all gung ho to start giving her chocolate bars and steak sandwiches, but instead it's just going to be rice cereal for a while. Rice cereal is fine, flaky stuff. Not unlike powdered milk. And depending on how much formula (or water) is added, it's the consistency of cream, thick soup, oatmeal or pudding.
Roxi's first "solid" food meal was more like serving her formula on a spoon, but it sure was fun. She didn't really take to it - cried nearly the whole way through. However, that was my fault because I didn't take the edge off her appetite first with a bottle. Now we know the drill: bottle first, then cereal. And now she seems to like it.
She's been eating about 2-3 teaspoons of cereal at one meal a day (she's down to 4 meals per day now). Her Gamma Rose was visiting last weekend and helped perfect Roxi's preferred consistency - less like gruel, more like thick pudding. We'll probably move on to more exciting and colorful things like green beans and bananas in a few weeks.
She looks so grown up sitting in her feeding chair with her bib. Like she could strike up a conversation about fine art and nibble on some hors d'ouevres. She looks less sophisticated once the cereal comes out though. Why swallow it all when you can spit some out and smear it on your face, after all? What fun is a bib if you're not going to use it? My favorite childhood picture of my brother Lee is one in which he's sitting in his high chair, covered from head to toe in chocolate pudding. I think of it - and him - every time Roxi eats.
We're taking a short break from the cereal right now because Roxi is going through a slow eating phase (again), and it's more important for her to eat all of her formula - packed with vitamins, iron and whatnot - than dabble in cereal.
She's also been stubborn about napping and we want to see if solid food might be the culprit. I doubt it has anything to do with the cereal though. Roxi has started to learn the power of crying, and I think she's just testing the limits when naptime comes around. Feisty! It's hysterical.