A Parenting Tip

Parenting is hard. What a cliche, but I can't help saying it because it is so freaking true.

Just when I get the hang of something (e.g. diaper changing, 2 am feedings, soothing, bathing, humoring, pacifying, etc.) Baby begins a new developmental milestone.

I just got the hang of bottle feeding him without having a load of puke to clean up while, at the same time, getting all the gas out so he wasn't screaming in abdominal distress for hours when The Book (no, not The Good Book, the baby book I read to teach me how to take care of Baby) and the pediatrician indicated it was time to start solids (and the babysitter, and my mother-in-law, and the lady at the store, and my friends, and my visiting teacher, and my neighbor, and my co-workers, and the Internet, and and and and).

So we did.

And even though every child with a camera-owning parent has pictures like these I've just about lost my patience with food going EVERYWHERE instead of inside the mouth AND down the esophagus.

We are on a time schedule in the morning and Baby doesn't seem aware to that fact. It is imperative that at this feeding we are somewhat efficient because neither of us can afford getting less sleep (i.e. get up earlier) to accommodate such a food fiasco. Part of the problem is that he wants to use the spoon and feed himself. Cool, but also annoying, messy, and slow. Every time I move the spoon toward his mouth he grabs at it with both hands and if he latches on he does not let go at any cost...and the food keeps flying around the kitchen.

I one-upped him though. I decided to hold his hands down with one of my own and fed him with my free hand. This has a 50/50 chance of working since he's good at weaseling and wrestling his hands free and if you know babies once their hands are free from restraint they flail them around crazy-like which causes even more food flying around the kitchen.

I finally caught on. All of you parents out there probably figured this one out long ago but parenting, much to my chagrin, has not come easy to me nor do I have much of that parenting 'common sense' to which all of those books and human resources often refer . Anyway, this morning I gave him a separate spoon to fiddle with while I fed him. He ate his cereal in 10 minutes flat and only had food on his face, neck, hands, arms, bib, and the high chair tray.

And his new favorite food is plums.