Like a Champ

Ava is becoming a munchmaster!

For all the issues she's had with bottle feeding, Ava seems oblivious to past feeding problems when she's got a tray full of NOMables in front of her.

We started with the typical purées cereals -- oatmeal or rice mixed with the gentlest of nature's offerings, such as apple, banana, or sweet potato -- and quickly deduced that her palate responded best to strong tastes.  For instance, she'll gum at some squash mush disinterestedly until I add a squirt of mustard.  Now THAT'S a party in your mouth, she seems to think.

Once I figured this out, I grew bolder.  I stopped buying Banana Creme puffs, opting for semi-spicy sounding alternatives like Garden Tomato and Ranch.  When we would go to eat at a Mexican restaurant (which you must learn to do as an Arkansan, lest you starve), I would give her avocado smush with a dressing of lemon, or a dot of salsa on a spoonful of queso blanco.  I'd try to hide my shock as Ava gobbled each offering then thumped the table with her thumb, which in her private sign language means, More, Here, Now.

And now, after a couple of months of practicing with dissolvable puffs, I suddenly noticed her little tongue going through the motions of rolling food around her mouth while her gums did a fairly convincing job of mincing like teeth. Hey, I thought, that looks an awful lot like chewing!  Let's stick something chewABLE in there and see what happens....

And so I gave her a pickle chip.  She pinched it and placed it in her mouth with the utmost caution.... And then her eyes lit up like Clark Griswold's Christmas display and the angels sang as she thought, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE, THOU CUCUMBER OF THE ANGELS???"

It's going to be an interesting Turkey Day.