Mesh Madness

I got a mesh feeder, despite mixed reviews from my friends. Hey, it was on sale. I wasn't overly excited about it, given that the boy has no interest in self-feeding. Also, he's really not terribly oral. I know some babies put everything in their mouths, and he'll give some things an experimental chomp, but the default move for him is grabbing and thumping, not grabbing and biting.

Also, I'm afraid to give him chunks of anything with more texture than an avocado. And he is his father's son, and hates avocado. If the moment of his birth wasn't seared into my brain forever ("you forget the pain of your dainty bits stretching beyond all recognition" is a total LIE, just so you know), I would question his being mine. How did I make a baby who doesn't like avocado? Anyway, I'm nervous about choking, and I'd feel better about letting him try more stuff if it were in something safe like a mesh feeder.

Oh, my goodness, but this is the most fun thing since putting peanut butter on the dog's nose. Not that we did that more than once and we're very, very sorry, please do not tell me how horrible I am.

The first thing we tried was carrot. I keep carrots in the fridge, so they're nice and cold. This one was peeled, which seemed to help him figure out that the end result would have the same smell as the stuff in the jars.

You would not think someone with three teeth could damage a carrot by much, would you? Listen, wolverines do less damage to weak, drugged cows tied to a stake.

He made these little "narf narf narf" noises, and had this vaguely feral expression on his face the whole time.

Next we tried apple ("honey crisp" apples from the farm stand). He loves applesauce, so we figured this couldn't go wrong. The look on his face at the crispy crunch noise that his three teeth made was priceless. I was a little surprised that two tiny chunks of apple could create enough liquid to soak the onesie from the neck all the way to the waist of his pants. But he was thrilled.

The next night I gave him some refrigerated apple. He was totally uninterested until it warmed up, and then he dove on it like a starving jackal dives on a discarded hamburger. All that was left in the bag was the peel.

We took him to the pediatrician yesterday, and I mentioned our adventures in mesh feeding. She told me to try... pickle.

What?

She swore up and down that she'd never met a baby who didn't adore a dill pickle. She said she recommended cold whole ones for teething.

All we had at home were dill slices for hamburgers. But I popped two of them into the bag, and handed it over.

He grabbed it with a gleeful shriek and bit down. Clearly he had been expecting fruit or vegetable - you know, the only stuff besides breastmilk that he'd ever eaten in his life? He took it out of his mouth and looked at it. Tried it again. Stared again. And then he went to freaking TOWN. He managed to get every molecule of pickle out of the bag, too.

Try it!