The highchair wars

next week, college, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

What the ...

The baby's been eating what arguably can be called real food -- pureed vegetables and soupy cereals -- for only a month now and already I'm noticing a trend.

He gets pretty excited by the increasing proximity of the booster chair. It means food.

He doesn't like fruits just yet. He makes unbearably cute wrinkled faces when his lips touch banana, apple or pear. But he'll eat the rice cereal mixed with sweet potato or squash like it's Grandma's homemade pie.

However the spoon is driving the poor boy crazy. He wants it for himself. He wants to hold it, and lick it clean and stick it in his ear if that's where it ends up. Doesn't matter. He. Wants. The. Spoon.

And if you take it away you will break his heart into a billion little pieces.

Now I am going to toot my own horn here -- because no matter what you all might think of me -- I'm not really quick on the uptake. Just this morning in the car Annabel and I endured 20 minutes of screaming during the morning commute before I thought to turn on the CD player and pump up the volume on the Dave Matthews CD that's been in the slot so long it must be stuck. Finally, we were able to enjoy the soothing sounds of musical silence for approximately 3 minutes until we reached our destination.

I digress.

I'm tooting because once I got the boy to calm down, I reached into the utencil drawer and retrieved ANOTHER SPOON. Yes folks, I played a little game of "I'll trade ya" with the pablum eater.

"I'll trade you this yummy spoon loaded with potato mush if you give me that empty old crusty one you've been sucking on now for the last half hour ..."

Worked like a charm.

Now all I need is a drain in the floor so I can use the hose for cleanup.