Then and now...

Yesterday evening little man started running a fever and, for once, I won't even try and guess what is the cause of it. He seems very content to be a permanent attachment to my lap and do little else. He definitely does not want me to do anything else! So, the only time I have my hands free is right now while I coax him into eating some eggs. As I sat here at the kitchen table looking at him with his flushed face, I started thinking about him learning to eat table and jar foods a year ago. I looked back into the file folder for January 09 and found this shot: His cheeks are all red for a completely different reason!

Here he is today...

He is very capable of feeding himself with spoon and fork. He definitely likes forks best and usually wants at least two with his lunch.  He likes to stab everything: bananas, cereal bars, crackers.  These days he will eat just about anything we give him, although he is not a fan of fresh apples or oranges. Hotdogs and yogurt would still be his favorite two things. Over Christmas we had a tub of pretzel rods in the pantry and more than once during their tenure here he would bring them to Josh or I asking for one, "P-p-p-e-e-e-z-e?" Impossible to resist. He likes popcorn which makes me very happy.

Every once in awhile when there is a casserole or stew for dinner he will look at it suspiciously and refuse to taste it. He'll block his mouth with his hands and turn his head up and away. I find myself channeling my Granny's favorite line of my childhood, "Just a taste" to which, of course, he still refuses. More often than not though, once you put a spoonful to his lips (on his face, whatever) he will get a taste and promptly finish a bowlful.

We don't have many "toddler" spoons and forks, so he has been getting regular size with about half his meals. He does o-k.  This is just fine with me because it is one less thing to have to buy or worry about while going out to dinner. We don't have any plastic plates either. I guess I never registered for things past 9 months. (Who does?)

The love all the introducing of new foods I get to do. Last week I taught him about ketchup and now he wants to dip everything into something else. (P.S. He loves ketchup!) On Saturday he asked for the maple syrup off the table to dunk his French toast in! Watching his reaction to new flavors is so fun.

I try not to worry when he goes through days of not wanting to eat much. The books say that toddlers are the best dieters because they truly only eat when they need fuel and resist when they are not hungry. Makes the emotional eater side of me very jealous of control like that! At this moment, and I can only speak for today because tomorrow will probably be very different, he is in an eating phase. Yesterday he ate a bowlful of cookies for an afternoon snack. (Who wouldn't?) Just wait until next month when I get to introduce him to the world of Girl Scout cookies! I would save that task for Dada but he isn't very good at sharing them.