dinner

Charli generally dislikes dinner (*gasp* Is she really mine?). She cries when I put her in her chair, but then she stops. Then I try to feed her some vegetables and meat, which she resists. This involves lots of arm flailing, rubbing of eyes, and eventually crying. Then, while she's screaming, if I feed her some fruit, she looks very surprised and eats it and wants more, but I don't want to feed her only fruit! So I try to sneak some vegetables in after a while - not so effective. She might eat one bite, make terrible faces, and then start spitting it out and getting back to her regular avoidance tactics. Very discouraging, especially for someone who thinks her child is starving. Here's a new thing she recently started doing while I'm trying to feed her:



There is light on the horizon, though! I have finally figured out several things:

1) Charli really, really hates chunks in her food. She doesn't like her food to be too thick, either (see chicken). I have started pureeing her food until it's way past the point where I think it makes a difference, and actually, it makes a difference. For vegetables, anyway - it doesn't matter what the texture of fruit is, she still loves it.

2) Frozen food! We went to Trader Joe's, and I got all kinds of frozen organic fruits and vegetables. Now all I have to do is defrost some of them, blend them up, and voila - baby food! I still cook up the meats beforehand, and add them to whatever I'm making, and it seems to be working out pretty well. It looks and tastes way better than most of the jarred baby foods, especially the peas. I made her chicken and peas and corn the other day, and she tolerated it really well.

3) She hates bland! I guess she is my child. I made her chicken and this green bean mix most recently, and she hated it. I hated it too. I tried it and it was so bland I could barely eat it. In addition, the texture was very grainy - green beans don't puree nearly as well as peas and corn. I tried to feed it to her anyway. I fed her one bite, and she hated it. So I put some cream and salt in, and then she actually liked it. She opened her mouth for more, but the texture was not improved, and she couldn't get over that. After a few more bites, she just was not having it. Today I fixed that by adding potatoes and butter, and it's a lot better, and she's eating it.

4) Oddly enough, there are certain songs that Charli will eat to. I keep trying more, but so far, only the Monchichi jingle (you know the one: Monchichi, Monchichi, oh so cute and cuddly... thumb... mouth... sweet... blah blah) and Omobolasire (Simon and Milo) work. The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas does not work. Neither does the Rainbow Connection, Cemetery Gates, Twinkle Twinkle or ABC, Frere Jacques or Row Row Row Your Boat. Very strange about Monchichi and Omobolosire, though - I've used them repeatedly; they work every time. She might eat another 15 spoonfuls while I'm singing those songs.