Another First... Kinda

Peanut turned six months old this week, which means...  solids!  Matt and I (or should I say, I, with Matt's gracious support) have decided to do Baby-Led Weaning with her.  Basically, purees are out.  Babies feed themselves.  If you poke around on the website (or look around on the Facebook site) you'll get the idea.  It's pretty cool.  We can focus on feeding her whole, real foods instead of fillers (like baby cereal).  And because they say if a child is breastfed then "food before one is just for fun" (or, just for practice), we don't have to worry if we offer her food and she chooses not to eat it--breastmilk will supply all the nutrients she needs anyway.  She'll eat when she's ready.  Right?

So, Matt and I were sitting on the couch tonight after the older two went to bed, and we got onto this topic.  Talking about how she puts everything in her mouth.  And about how she's been really paying attention to us when we eat.  Matt says, "Hey, it's too bad we don't have any bananas."  I say, "I could run to the store.  The kids have been asking for chocolate milk but we're out, so I could pick up some of that too."  And all of a sudden we're kinda excited--woohoo, Peanut's going to have real food!  Yay! 

So I went to the store and got bananas, chocolate milk, and a couple avocadoes, since they were ripe and they are supposed to be really good for babies given that they are high in calories and "good" fats.  I came home, nursed Peanut (always give babies solids after they've nursed so they're still getting the bulk of their nutrition from breastmilk), tickled her so she wouldn't fall asleep, set her in the highchair, got the camera, and gave her a couple chunks of avocado.  And waited.

And waited.

And realized...

I hate waiting.  I want to be in control.  She was just sitting there, so I put some avocado in her hand (that took some finagling) and waited again.  Nothing.  Maybe she doesn't get it.  So Matt put a little in her mouth.  Hm.  Nothing.  Matt says, "I don't think she likes it.  Let's try bananas."  So he got a banana and split it (like this, it's kinda cool) and put a "finger" on her tray.  And we waited.

And waited.

And still nothing.

I broke off a little piece and managed to chase down her mouth with it (she would not hold her head still), and I got this face: 

"Hey, Mom, remember?  Baby-led weaning?  Remember the baby?  That's me.  I'm not really diggin' this right now.  Can we just back off for awhile, please?"

Well, so much for that first.  If you can even call it a first.  I'll let you all know when it actually happens.