I Eats it, I Eats it Not

When The Cheekster goes out, you can see us coming from a mile away.  From a distance, we look like a circus rolling into town.

So in other words, we look pretty normal.

The only thing that might set our motley caravan apart from another baby's is the milky white kite string that trails from a nondescript black backpack on my back and disappears into the leg opening of wee bird's onesie.  It's provided Ava's supplemental nourishment over the past couple of months, it's been a source of questions from our friends and strangers alike, and it's a constant tripping hazard for every mobile member of the household.  But I'm glad it's there.

Because she has it, she gets as much food as she needs to grow.  (Sometimes she even gets more than that, and it ends up painted all over the backseat/couch/swing/dog/ad lib-clean-object-here.)

Because she has it, she has more than enough energy to roll across the bed and play in the morning.  

Because she has it, sometimes I get to stop in the middle of the grocery store and explain to curious bystanders how my baby can eat through a button AND a bottle, and hope that my explanation removes a curtain of fear and uncertainty that sometimes obscures how relatable children with special needs actually are.

Because she has it, she treats it like a toy when she can get a hold of it.  I really have to keep an eye out toward the north when I'm preoccupied with a dirty diaper, because her curious fingers will find it and twist it like a play-pretty on her baby walker.

Because she has it, I'm all the more determined to work through her oral feeding issues that suddenly cropped up after her last surgery.  Even if it takes her forty five minutes to drink two ounces while I sing the phone book to keep her distracted from her fears, something inside assures me the investment in her oral strength will prove worthwhile instead of simply attending to her caloric needs in a more convenient manner and allowing therapists and pathologists to sort through a whole new snarl of issues down the road.  

Because she has it, people who assume she's a "sick" child are surprised when they witness her acting just like any other infant her age -- perhaps even smiley-er -- as she hollers with glee and gusto for the sake of hearing her own voice and dances her flappy baby dance on my knee.  The non-conformist in me relishes the moments when she blows people's expectations out of the water.  

*~*~*~*

Yesterday, Ava and I had lunch at a legendary Hot Springs barbecue shack with her Aunt Gigi and itty cousin Ana.  While Gi and I put the damage on some tamale spreads, sweet Ana snoozed and Ava sat in my lap.  This is when it really hit me that she is 

displaying some major solid food readiness.

Everything went from the tabletop and into her wide-open maw.  The straw cover, a stray barbecue bean, the corner of saltine cracker.... And thank God our observant waitress was passing by in time to point out that perhaps I didn't want my seven month old to digest half the paper napkin she's ably bitten off and chewed.

So we've begun experimenting with dissolvable baby puffs, Apple and Sweet Potato flavored.  They're mild (of course Mommy tried them -- quality control issue), but quite nummy.  We're still working bits of mango, banana or blueberry through the netting lolly, and gumming sweet carrots and applesauce when we're in our high chair.

Maybe....

Yes....

Blark!

Maybe the answer is to go ahead and forward-focus upon what she seems intent on discovering instead of completely recovering what we've lost and re-beginning at that point.  We'll work with the abilities she seems to take pleasure in and in which she displays no aversion toward asserting herself.  

So we add to the three-ring caravan various multicolored Nuby spoons, a baby Bullet blender, baggies of crunch-puffs, about five more bibs and a drop cloth.

And a partridge in a pear tree.