Finally!!

Kaelyn has been trying to mother Owen.

Kaelyn has finally decided to start eating solid foods!

Some background:  At four months we started introducing some cereal in Kaelyn's diet. Like normal we started with some rice cereal.  She didn't particularly like it, but she would eat a few bites.  We then introduced oatmeal, which she liked better but still would only eat a few bites.  Then we had the stomach flu off and on (I think we had three bouts between November and February).  I didn't feed her any solids while she was sick and kept nursing her.  It was a long winter.  When we began to feel better I started reintroducing the solids to her.  Every time I gave her a spoonful of cereal she would get sick for a few hours.  I threw out the cereal, thinking it somehow got contaminated.  I bought new cereal.  She got sick on that up as well.  At six months old she gags or throws up each time I try to feed her.  We try a different approach; we skip cereals and try to feed her some home cooked veggies.  She doesn't throw them up; she purses her lips closed and won't even try to eat the food.  We give up.  Every week or two we would offer her something from our plate only for her to give us the baby stink eye and keep her mouth shut.  Sometimes she would open her mouth to try it, but she would gag and spit it out. She turned 10 months old on my birthday and we offered her some vanilla ice cream.  She LOVED it. Woah!  She was eating food.  It may not have been healthy, but she was showing interest in something other than breast milk (from the tap, mind you. She refuses bottles or sippy cups).

So now, as per doctor suggestion, we offer her pudding.  She loves it.  She eats chocolate pudding like it's ambrosia. We try mushed carrots and she spits them out.  Ok, at least she is starting to eat again.  This past weekend I went camping.  I brought some butterscotch pudding to eat to change the taste of her sugar.  Of course she loved it.  She also liked toasted marshmallows and she was drinking soda from a glass.  This is big since she wouldn't take drinks from me before.  She was also licking some toddler puffs.  She didn't eat them, but she would squish them and taste them.

On Monday I came out to Pittsburgh to help my sister by watching my nephew, Owen.  I offered Kaelyn rice pudding and she ate it!  She used to hate foods with texture, so another huge jump for her.  She also ate all the ricotta cheese mixture out of all my raviolis.  She is also now eating the puffs instead of just licking them. This morning she ate some cheese filled coffee cake and drank some V-8 Fusion out of a sippy cup! I think she wanted to drink out of a bottle because she has been watching Owen drink from a bottle.

I guess Kaelyn has finally gotten hungry enough to eat food.  I had this vision that I would be nursing her until she graduated college. I know that was silly, but I was getting so worried about her lack of eating.  I am glad I didn't push her to eat and that she found the will on her own.  She takes after me- dessert is the best part of the day!

I can imagine few things more trying to the patience than the long wasted days of waiting. ~Robert Falcon Scott