The Mandarin Candidate

I've been seriously stressing about Mikayla's eating for the last couple months. We started her on purees a little before her 6 month birthday and she did great. We started finger foods awhile after and she was doing pretty well with that as well. Then about a month and a half ago, she just didn't want anything to do with "big girl food" - she had less and less interest in purees, and didn't want any finger foods except Puffs (little cereal bits from Gerber that melt in the baby's mouth). If we gave her a little chunk of food she'd stick her finger in it, see that it wasn't a Puff, and automatically chuck it over the side of her highchair - ha! I really started to worry that I'd have a 5-year-old who just drank formula and ate Puffs. But, these last couple weeks she's gotten SO much better! It really started when we were having dinner at Sizzler's, a place we hardly ever go. I've been trying to keep offering her solid food at every meal even though it was getting discouraging seeing her refuse food again and again - we set her up in a highchair by our table and put a few chunks of soft food from the salad bar. Color us amazed when she picked up a pea and stuck it straight into her mouth. And then went back for MORE! AND MORE! She was a little eating machine - anything soft we put in front of her she ate, even bits of steak. I cried. I actually cried at Sizzler's for pete's sake, but I was SO happy and relieved that she was eating.

Ever since then her eating has been better and better. I think it had to do with her teething before - maybe it hurt to chew on anything? Now that she's popped another tooth (that makes 2 and a half teeth, thank you very much!) she's a lot more interested in solids. She can still be a little picky, but she's eating lots of veggies (peas are still a favorite, and she LOVES steamed broccoli), meats (chicken especially) and fruit. We gave her small bits of mandarin oranges today and she LOVED it, I could barely put enough in front of her. She still loves her Puff but now munches on Cheerios, bits of dried fruit and other whole grain goodies. I'm more than thrilled, we have a big girl eater on our hands!! Hopefully this means pretty soon we can lay off the very expensive formula and start giving her milk to drink. Our little girl is growing up!

On a completely unrelated note, we were at Costco today and Mikayla was sitting in the cart. She was being her usual happy-go-lucky self, smiling at everyone and giggling and waving. The checker asked if she was always so good natured and I said yes. She said we were very lucky. Indeed! :)