A solid start

Now THERE'S a guy who's enjoying his food!

After a couple of pretty rough dress rehearsals, solids enjoyed a great opening night last night! John was definitely ready this time. (I love it when my Mommy instincts are right. Well, actually I read it in a book, but my Mommy instincts told me to trust the book, so I think it still counts.) He opened wide for every bite, and although he still thinks it's pretty vile, judging from the look on his face, he swallowed everything, opened his mouth for more, and reached for Dad's hand to keep it coming. We just mixed a couple of tablespoons, and he ate everything with relish, but it was probably the just right amount, because he did spit the last bite out.

We actually started with the organic rice after all - oats do technically have gluten. So we talked it over, and decided to play it extra-safe, and go with the organic rice, which has nothing but rice and iron. No gluten, no chemicals. Not much in there to disagree with him. So far, so good. No throwing up, no dark circles, and most importantly, no nasty, weepy, raw, red rash, which had already appeared by this time the last time we tried solids. Keep your fingers crossed. So, we'll press on, every night for a week, then switch to the oats if all is still well, then we'll debate how to go from there. There's two schools of thought - one school says to start with orange veggies first, then yellow, then green, then fruit, so they don't develop a sweet tooth. The other school says to start with fruit for breastfed babies, because breastmilk is super sweet, so fruit's a more familiar flavour. They recommend banana first, because it tastes the closest. Though, we've just fed him basicly paste and he gobbled it up no problem, so I don't think it makes much difference what kind of flavour we start with.

While we were waiting for Mike, I gave John the spoon with cereal on it! It was pretty funny! He got it into his mouth just fine. (Well, after smearing the cereal across his face, that is.) But he wasn't sure what to do with it after that point. He kind of played with it with his tounge, so he got some of the rice off, but he kept pushing it too far back, making himself gag. Then, he didn't seem to know how to get it back out. He sat there looking at me, mouth gaping open, with this spoon shoved in his mouth, like "what am I supposed to do now?" But he got it in by himself - that's half the battle!

More pictures below!!!