When we were there a couple of weekends ago, it was time to introduce a new food. And the new food of the week was peas. Katy was cooking dinner so she handed me the container and asked if I would mind feeding Her Highness. She's not quite sitting up without support yet, so we put her in the Bebepod chair and set her on top of the dining room table. I'll get back to this story in a minute, but first let me give you a little background.
Flashback about 30 years to Katy at about the same age, sitting in another infant seat on another dining room table with her dad feeding her. She's been eating for a while now. As a matter of fact, back then, we started feeding babies cereal at about six weeks old. But on this day, she was about four or five months old. She had already been eating different kinds of cereals, fruits, and vegetables. We had recently introduced baby food meats, chicken, beef, pork, all ground to complete mush, with limited success. She ate them less than enthusiastically. But on this night her dad had decided that she should try liver. Yep, that's right, they actually make baby food liver. GROSS!
(As an aside here, let me just tell you that Grams doesn't eat liver. I don't like the taste and the texture is yucky. Because of my distaste for liver, I would never offer it to anyone, but especially not to my precious baby girl.)
Dad took the spoon, dipped it into the baby food jar, and gave Katy a bite. She took it on her tongue and closed her mouth. He turned around and gave me a self-satisfied look as he said "See I told you she would like it." Just about the time he turned back around to give her another bite, Katy opened her mouth and stuck her tongue out. The spoonful of liver was still sitting atop her tongue. She proceeded to scrape her tongue across her top gums, pushing all the liver off and out of her mouth where it then plopped onto her bib. She then closed her mouth and with great determination refused to take another bite. I had to retreat to the kitchen because I was laughing hysterically and trying not to say "I told you so."
Now, back to Her Highness perched atop the dining room table in her chair. I dip my spoon into the container of baby food peas and give HH her first taste of peas. And, you guessed it, she spit it right out. I tried again, and she took it tentatively before spitting it out again. On the third bite I could tell that she was tasting it and testing it and she swallowed it. But I don't think she really liked it.
Parenting has changed a lot in the thirty or so years since Grams and Grandad were starting out with babies. Parents today seem so much more knowledgeable than we were. And there are so many more gadgets and goodies. Our granddaughters eat organic and often homemade food. We'd never even heard of organic food and, in our day, only the most fanatical moms made their own baby food.
What are the biggest changes you've seen in parenting babies?
