Rice, Rice Baby or One Step Closer to Cheese Fries

We couldn't decide on a title. Thank you husband for both little gems.

Luke is about to be 21 weeks. Is that crazy to anyone else? I know everyone said that time would fly after Luke joined our family in person, and I try to enjoy each day for the new and mostly fun things that come, but wow. He is one week away from the 5 month mark. ("Wait," you say. "I thought he was 21 weeks? Isn't that over 5 months?" No. Those of us who think of 4 week months are wrong. You don't have any reason to really notice that until you start counting how pregnant you are or how old your baby is.)

Luke had an appointment with his pediatrician Dr. V at the end of August and he said it was time to introduce rice cereal. I had planned on waiting a little longer because of a bunch of articles I read about infants and food and blah blah blah, but when the Dr. gives you the go ahead for something fun like this, it's hard to say no. So we waited until the following weekend and gave it a try. It was kind of a letdown. He didn't make that big of a mess and really he just kept spitting it out and looking at me like I was crazy for putting this stuff in his mouth. But the next day was a little better and the third day was great. He started opening his mouth for the spoon and actually got a little bit down. But there was a lot of spit up. A LOT. Like, enough for me to call the Dr. thinking he might be having a bad reaction to it. And I hadn't called the Dr. for any reason up to that point, so you know I was concerned. He assured me that all was fine and to just keep trying. I wasn't feeling it, but gave it a try anyway. For the next three days Luke cried when I tried to feed him. He fussed and tried to escape and wanted nothing to do with the food. The last thing I wanted was for eating to be a stressful situation, and that's exactly what I was creating.

I decided to trust my instincts that were telling me that Luke wasn't ready for solids yet, so we went back to the bottle for a week. Then yesterday Luke was watching Matt eat a bowl of cereal and he opened his mouth when Matt would take a bite. If that's not my child telling me he is ready for real food, I don't know what is! So we gave it a second try this morning and it was fantastic! He opened his mouth when he saw the spoon and ate the whole bowl of cereal! And he was excited about it, which was the best part. Here are some of the favorite pictures from this morning.

Biased, shimiased. Man, that's a cute kid.