The thought of my daughter learning to spoon feed herself gives me small coronaries. The more I think about it, the more I get until I am in a full blown heart attack. The mess that goes along with learning to spoon feed yourself is a given and I know you know exactly what I am talking about. But, if there is one thing I am learning as a parent, it is that sometimes you just have to live in the moment and let them get messy. Sometimes you have to ignore the pretty white shirt that just got splattered with spaghetti sauce or the adorable pants that just became victim of a blow out.
So when I made spaghetti last night I decided that I would strip Zoey down and let her have at it. I mean, what is more fun that making a mess and eating spaghetti?
She loved it! As soon as I put the tray down with the cut up spaghetti noodles and sauce on it, she started hitting the tray like a wild maniac. Noodles were flying everywhere. She would pick noodles up by the handful and throw them or drop them on the floor. And…
That was the happiest dog in the universe last night. She sat there, patiently attentive. Waiting. Yearning. Begging. PLEASE DROP MORE!
I had to spoon a few noodles into her mouth so she would realize that this is stuff that you can not only play with but also EAT! And YUM! It is delicious! Once she had a bite, she realized what it was and started eating them. It took some serious concentration and a level of hand eye coordination that she didn’t even know she was capable of but she would eventually get a noodle into her mouth. I even witnessed her splurping a few noodles up.. I had no idea she knew how to slurp a noodle! And by the way, slurping noodles is annoying and I hate when I hear people do it.. but when my sweet peanut is doing it, it is the cutest thing ever :)
You know, it is a little more challenging these days to feed her. We don’t give her baby puree very often anymore and I try to give her whatever we are having for dinner. Making sure she is getting a healthy, well balanced diet is not an easy task. I’m sure it would be easier if I was making sure my husband and I were always getting a well balanced diet but sometimes it is hard to remember to take care of yourself when you are so busy taking care of someone else.
I already said this once on twitter, but OMG, I love these pictures. You are also much better than I, because even after 3 kids now, I still can’t let them get that messy. I’m sure she had a blast.
My husband is very much like you in the sense that he would freak out about messes, but honestly, you do have to let them get dirty every now and again. I have so many pictures of my kids just tearing into food and wearing most of it on themselves.
And I get the whole balanced diet scenario. I usually plan the kids meals according to a balanced diet & then eat whatever they are eating. It does not always work out the best, but it is worth a shot. :)