Experimenting with cereal

Sunday was a big day in our house -- we introduced Lucy to table foods for the first time!

Up until now she has been primarily on breast milk with some formula mixed in. I thought I would keep it that way until 6 months. However, research convinced me to go ahead and try the cereal at 5 months. It is pretty bland, so there is not a lot of change in taste for her and it will get her used to the texture before introducing flavors in a month. I did my research and decided to puree brown rice cereal for her. I made a big batch and froze portions in ice trays, so we have a ready supply.

Kip did most of the feeding. This little lady loves her Daddy and they both had a great time experimenting with this "first."

And I got in on the action too, but notice how Lucy is much more interested in smiling at her daddy - who is taking this picture - than paying attention to Mommy trying to feed her. Story of my life!

And how did Lucy like it? She loved it! Granted, it was her first time with food, so most of it ended up on her bib instead of in her tummy, but that was to be expected. She has gotten much better at it in the past couple of days. But she seemed to like the taste - which greatly surprised me, because in my opinion it smelled like a mix between bad breath and feet. I also tasted it and thought it was disgusting. I was checking the texture and worried I hadn't pureed it fine enough, so I took a little taste on my finger, completely forgetting for a moment that it was made with breast milk. Most mom's are probably not grossed out by tasting their own breast milk, but I definitely am (it's like those kids who eat their own blood - one should never consume juices from ones own body - eew), and after taking a tiny dab in my mouth after forgetting what it was, I quickly downed some orange fanta to drown out the taste! However, Lucy appears to have no problem with it, and even grabbed the spoon and tried to feed herself. This either shows that she is very independent and will not let us do things for her for very long or that the teething is advancing and she could care less about eating but really wanted to gnaw on the fun new spoon. I'm still not sure which it was!

And, of course I had to get the obligatory "after the first feeding" messy picture. I must say, it is pretty darn cute! We quickly rushed her to the bath after this.

All in all, the first feeding was a huge success! And I'm very happy to announce that each feeding since this one has been MUCH less messy. She definitely prefers the cereal end up in the tummy instead of the bib now. Soon she will be wanting as much as she wants her bottle. And in case you don't know how much she loves her bottles . . . here is some adorable evidence of that: