Solid Food!

We are often asked, from a professional medical standpoint, "How does one know that their infant is ready to start solid food?" Experience has taught us thus:

1. Usually 4-6 months old

2. Mealtimes have become more unmanageable for the rest of the family, since the infant is so interested in food that they grab at anything they can find.

3. The infant is willing to eat anything in their hands, including pieces of a red envelope. (No worries, we are quite confident it all made it's way, recognizably, through the alimentary canal.)

4. The booster seat/high chair thing arrives in the mail from Babies R' Us.

5. Basically, when one's infant has all the characteristics of the infant seen above, one Maggie McLaughlin.

This morning, Maggie ventured formally into the world of solid food, with a meal of rice cereal. She did really well with it, and she mainly loved chewing on the spoon, with the effect that some food got into her mouth and into her stomach. She was, as usual, quite active, and wanted to use her hands to grab at the cup of rice cereal or to manipulate the spoon on her own, thus necessitating the two-handed method of baby feeding seen below. We picked up a sweet potato and a squash from the grocery store today, and we look forward to a new type of food adventure over the next couple weeks!