Friday, June 01, 2007

Open wide.

If you can't put breastmilk in the microwave, how will I make the cereal?

I have been plagued with thoughts of Haven's first eating experience and woke to this thought a few weeks ago. I was able to drift back to sleep once I conceded that I would probably find instructions on the box of cereal.

I was at the grocery store the day before he turned 16 weeks. I gawked at the choices of infant rice cereal for a half hour. Organic. Whole grain. Nondescript. Iron supplemented. Store brand. Gerber. Earth's Best. 8 ounces. 10 ounces. Then on to spoons. Oh Lordy.

The recipe for infant cereal is 1 tablespoon of mix to 2-3 tablespoons of breastmilk (or formula or water). This amounts to the thinnest gruel you've ever seen. The point, more than to fill his tummy, it to teach him to use a spoon. After a few wet and whiney attempts to give him cereal this week, he sucked down a full bowl (read: 2 tablespoons) of slightly thicker cereal this morning. Quite a bit landed inside his bib pocket and in the rolls of his neck, but he slurped some of it into his mouth. His eyes were gigantic and he babbled through the whole event, then, when it was over, he cried until he fell asleep. Growing up is so hard sometimes.

3 comments:

Jen said...

I remember when my kids first had cereal. They hated it until I would mix in some of the Step 1 baby food fruit. They loved the apricot and banana. Some days I miss the baby stuff and other days I don't! Did you get a picture? Do share!

clever[art] said...

Wow, at totally different world than mine. Motherhood... amazing to me. I wish you the best. Sound like a great mom.

Karenkool said...

Oh rice cereal--YUM!