Eating Solids

So the exciting thing with Ethan these days is that he is eating solid food. We've started him on rice cereal - the typical stage 1 food recommended by pediatricians.

At first, Ethan would just play with the spoon with his tongue, or take in some cereal, only to dribble it through his lips and onto his chin and bib. Soon enough, his whole face (yea even in his hair) would be smeared with rice :-) And to think I used to cringe when my young nieces used to make a mess while my sister fed them their solid foods. Well (ahem) here we are, Ethan is doing the very same thing, and I am actually OK with it :-p Love you, Shar! (no 'I told you so's please)

But that was a whole week ago now (or more?) and Ethan is just loving his rice cereal. I am not sure exactly how much he is eating, but it sure seems like a lot. We use one of those cuppie things (it is probably a real 1/2 cup volume?) and a small plastic spoon, and most recently, Ethan was able to eat HALF of that whole cup! Mmmmm... I love it when he eats so much :-)

He gets his usual 2 or 3 meals with rice cereal and supplemented with breastmilk. His dinner is usually only breastmilk actually.

I weighed him the other day, and Ethan tipped the scales at 16lbs. Of course, once we go to the doctor's office for his 6-month well-child visit on March 19th, he will probably officially weigh somewhere in the 15's.

Steady progress. He seems to be tackling all developmental milestones pretty well and without much fuss - thank God!

He is starting to purposefully grab things - which is cute only for now I'm sure. Eating dinner with him on our lap is more difficult now.

Oh, and when I feed him with a bottle, he can even hold the bottle by himself! (though when I do this, his interest in his own hands grasping an object is enough to distract him from his drinking!!) Errr.. can't get a break. Soon enough, he'll be drinking his own milk from a sippie cup or bottle and he won't need his daddy for that -- that's when I'll probably miss these days now when he is so completely reliant on me for many things.