Munchies

Miss Katherine turned six months old yesterday.  Despite my grand visions, we did not spend the day dressing her up and taking formal pictures of her.  That will need to come a bit later, since we, instead, spent the day sniffling as a three-part chorus (awwww).

Six months, in case you’re interested, is also the date set by the American Academy of Pediatrics for beginning to introduce solid foods to infants.  I haven’t been pushing Katherine on it, partly because she’s still more interested in spoons than in the contents of those spoons, and partly, I admit, because, as a cloth-diapering family, solid food will require us to get into whole new diaper-cleaning territory!

But we have given Katherine a few things here and there.  She seemed quite interested in watermelon, since she could grasp it and suck all of the juice out of it.  Sorbet, of course, she licks quite happily.  We’ve also started using food as a distraction technique.  Last night I was chopping peppers and set Katherine up in her usual observation post, right next to the cutting board.  She got very interested in my pepper pieces, which are far too small for her (and near the knife!), so I gave her a large piece.  It took her about a minute to decide that she was fine with the flavor (funny faces, many funny faces), and then she munched on it quite happily for ten minutes or so.  Then we went back to the shiny spoon.  Sydney did something similar with zucchini today, which she also seemed to like.  The red pepper surprised us; maybe we’ll have an adventurous eater on our hands!  When it looks like she’s really interested in food we have lots of squash, potatoes, and sweet potatoes from Sydney’s garden to mash up for her, but for now we’re all enjoying her playing with food.