first bites

At first glance, it looks like my kids will be pros at food. Right? Look at this snap of Henry with Uncle Christopher in the twins’ first-ever trip to a restaurant. They didn’t eat anything, but they seem to have their culinary-ese down pat. I can almost see Henry looking up and saying, “I’ll take a piece of chocolate cheesecake please, no whipped cream. Thank-you.”

This food finesse was short lived. Trying to encourage early table manners fell apart as soon as the spoon was in reach – with the rice cereal which was *extra* watered down because I confused “tablespoons” with “ounces.” An honest mistake, if you think about it.

And, as the old adage says – now, there are green beans everywhere. 

I feel somewhat to blame – seeing that I didn’t follow any book. The babies’ ped said basically – “no honey, no milk, no peanut butter until their first birthday.”

I was expecting more explicit instructions. And elaborate pictograms which would make Ikea direction writers proud. No such luck. And so, Tony and I were on our own.

With limitless freedom we inaugurated the great-American-food show. Thank goodness Gordon Ramsay wasn’t around. I bought a baby food processor/steamer/defroster combo (which works out well seeing that we do not have a microwave). A few baby freezer trays and an express pass to the farmers market. NB – the food maker is French. El processor is mon amour. *sigh*. I prepared beautiful food – selected the best, peeled it, arranged it, sliced it diagonally.

Then pureed it into near-oblivion. 

So far we’ve had green beans, carrots, sweet potato, a bite of blueberry and loads of summer squash.

Oh yes, and Sophia had half a sheet of paper. But we won’t discuss that.

Book or no book, rules or no rules, we have had loads of fun so far. We eat the wrong end of the spoon. We eat the bowl. We demonstrate. We wear the food. We mix up bibs.

And, naturally, we always end with a bath.