On Tuesday, April 5th, Hunter decided that He Will Feed Himself, Thank You Very Much.

Life has been significantly more challenging on the food front since then.

Hunter's always been kind of independent when it came to feeding. After we started introducing solid foods, he kept grabbing the spoon.


Fortunately, I'd bought a 12-pack of baby spoons, so I utilized the Two Spoons Feeding Method, whereby he'd get one spoon and I'd feed him with the other.

Hunter eventually discovered that he has two hands.



Thus came into being the Three Spoons Feeding Method.

We've been trying the Lil' Dipper self-feeding utensil by Gerber. Hunter The Iconoclast prefers to grab the "wrong" end and chew it like a cigar.

But now there has been a definite shift. He started complaining and turning away when I tried feeding him, yet I could tell he was still hungry. I gave him some banana, and sure enough, he started digging in.

My challenge is to find the juxtaposition between food he can eat (meaning that he's developmentally able to digest, physically capable of picking up and mashing around enough so he doesn't choke himself, and doesn't have added salt/sugar/etc.) and food he will eat. There's also a measurement issue: sometimes I can't tell how much he's actually eaten until I take him out of the high chair and find the mounds of escapees.

This hasn't been an issue before now: Hunter would eat anything. (I'm pretty sure the Great Squash Debacle had more to do with teething than squash itself, since he later really liked it.) If he weren't sure about something (spinach, green beans), I could mix it with some carrots and he'd be good to go. Now he's starting to show definite preferences, and I'm going crazy trying to make sure he gets enough nutrition.

Okay, confession time: half of it truly is trying to make sure he gets proper nutrition, because he's an active little guy and I want to do the best I can to ensure he has what he needs to thrive and grow. The other half is that, if he's not filled to the brim, he wakes up hungry in the middle of the night, and as his Alternate Food Source, I'm getting a bit sore.

He's still letting me feed him cereal (fortified with formula, applesauce and a little yogurt), and I don't mind letting him eat cereal on his own because it's relatively easy to clean up. I'm also managing to get in a couple of 4oz jars of mixed-item-meals a day into him around his little fingers, which make me feel better. Other than that, so far I've come up with:

Cheerios (of course!)
Peas
Edame (soy) beans (he's not real thrilled with these)
Zucchini
Cooked spinach (he's not sure about this; I'm thinking of cooking it in chicken juices to see if it helps)
Cooked carrots
Avocado (when we can get it cheap)
Potatoes
Corn tortillas
Pasta (of various grains)
Jack cheese
Veggie crackers
Egg yolk
Cut up chicken (he started demanding the leg bones last night; I took off whatever bits seemed potentially dangerous and told him to have at it)
Ground beef
Banana
Canned pears
Soaked raisins (ours had gotten a bit hard)
Blueberries

Blueberries are tasty, nutritious and easy for little fingers to pick up. Hunter enjoys dissecting them before attempting to get them into his mouth. Usually, I just give him blueberries if he's wearing his navy outfit. Yesterday, I threw caution to the winds and let him eat them while wearing something else. Thank goodness for Zout and Spray & Wash! Today, it was warm, so he was down to his diaper. Between the banana, chicken, zucchini, potato and blueberries, we ended up with today's journal entry title.

Y'know, he's adorable even when he's covered in sticky goop.