I Guess Oscar Mayer DOES Have A Way!

After asking for suggestions here and a couple of other places for ways to get James to eat meats, I sat and decided to figure out alternatives.

I think the most frustrating thing for me is that we had to be so careful about him putting things in his mouth and those things winding up in his cleft that we may have been TOO careful.

While he does pick things up with his fingers, and I have seen him put puff cereal in his mouth twice, he still doesn't want to do it regularly. I know he won't starve if we were to sit him in his high chair and work on it, but it's frustrating. He is a strong little booger, and he gets so mad when you try to get him to do things he doesn't want.

Trust me, you don't want to see him when he gets mad.

Even with walking, he is doing it himself.  If you go stand him, he drops to his butt, crawls away, then stands up by himself in the middle of the living room.  He may only walk 2 steps before losing balance at that point, but he did it himself and apparently that's what he wants.

His thing is to come looking for what I am eating.  Most times, if it's from my plate and I give him a taste, he will eat and ask for more.  This does not work with chicken, only worked with meatloaf if I had a small bite hidden in mashed potatoes, and doesn't work at all with watermelon.  He's tried each of those items, and as you can see from what I have written, he already has his likes and dislikes.

Which leads me to a little while ago.

I toasted 2 pieces of breaded very very lightly and opened a package of Oscar Mayer All Beef Bologna. After getting 2 slices of that into the bread, I stood in the kitchen thinking about his lunch and also when to try the sippy cup this afternoon.

Next thing you know, I have someone standing next to me, using my knee for balance, and looking at me with this grin.

He was eyeballing my sandwich.

And I decided it couldn't hurt.

I ended up taking a slice out of my sandwich and feeding it to him like a little bird.  Once it was gone, he went about his business of opening and slamming shut all the kitchen cabinet doors.

Today's morale is that I need to stop over thinking.  He is doing fine, though I wish we weren't spending so much on jarred food, but it's a convenience.  And neither of us has the inclination to make him food from scratch just yet.  If he would be feeding himself, maybe.

For now, his bologna has a first name....