juthwara

After some stopping and starting, K has been receiving rice cereal on a regular basis for the past week. So far, it's been quite a success. She definitely loves her some cereal, and after lots of initial dribbling and messiness, she's all business and barely makes a mess at all. If she dribbled, that would be precious cereal that's not going down her gullet, after all, and that would be a tragedy.

It's definitely been an education though:

1. Would You Like That With a Straw Or a Trowel?

I can never figure out just how thick the cereal is supposed to be. According to the box, I'm supposed to start with a tablespoon of cereal to 4 tablespoons of milk and increase from there as she gets used to the new texture. This is just a tad vague, as it doesn't say where you're supposed to stop. The thickness of cream of wheat? Instant oatmeal? Library paste? Concrete? Uranium?

At the moment, I'm going with three tablespoons of cereal to four of milk, which is somewhere between cream of wheat and instant oatmeal. I may increase further to a 1:1 ratio; we shall see. Incidentally, while I'm a librarian, I have absolutely no idea what the thickness of library paste actually is. I can compare it to rubber cement, or book tape, but I've never used paste on books. Although if I managed to produce cereal the color and texture of clear book tape, I would be a bit afraid.

Anyway, any considerations of texture quickly become moot:

2. Breast Milk is Miraculous. But Also Weird.

The milk being used is made on the premises, so to speak. The interesting thing about breast milk is that is actually contains digestive enzymes; this is one of the things that makes it so easy on infants stomachs. But this creates a fascinating interaction with the cereal. Each bowl starts out moderately thick and gets thinner and thinner until at the very end, I'm spooning out cereal that's virtually indistinguishable from milk. This is because the breastmilk is actually sitting there in the bowl, digesting the cereal as I hold it. I find this cool. But also disturbing and freaky.

3. Thank you, I Did Need a Shower Today

When you have a baby who particularly enjoys blowing raspberries, it's probably best to be really sure that she's hungry before you sit down to give her cereal. Because otherwise, you'll be figuring out how to clean rice cereal off of you face, glasses, clothes, the floor, the wall...

In a similar vein:

4. Move Along Ma'am, There's Nothing to See Here

Cereal feeding can take a while. You would think that an extended time sitting in front of your adorable child would be an excellent time to get some quality interaction in with said adorable - exchanging yummy noises, making the growling sounds she loves so, talking to her in an attempt to develop her language skills to the point that you someday have a three-year-old who talks like William Safire. You would be wrong.

This is because K simply loves to be spoken to, and it always merits a big grin. We're talking! To her! When did life get so great?!? But grinning means her mouth is open, and she currently lacks the oral-motor skills to both have her mouth open and keep the contents therein from oozing out. So in the interest of keeping food on the inside where it belongs, we're all business at the moment. Nope, no baby entertaining going on here. Leave the oogling and careful pronunciation of five-syllable words until after she's done eating, or better yet, wait for the convenient breaks in eating that come when the food hitting her stomach causes her bowels to start producing. Now that's multitasking!

***

In other news, we are going out tomorrow night without the baby. *pause for shocked gasps* And after only a little less than 5 months!

longstrider sounded out one of the student workers he's friendly with and discovered that 1) she's been babysitting for years, 2) loves to babysit, and 3) charges a price we can afford. Score! And while I know teenagers make perfectly good babysitters, I'm happy that she's college-aged - it will ease the anxiety of parting a bit. And then next week at Thanksgiving,

longstrider's parents will watch K so we can go out again. I may get woozy at the very idea of going out baby-free twice in one week.