My daughter is not yet three, but we know she is a neat-freak. Very particular, almost prissy. She nibbled at her first birthday cake, becoming frustrated that we gave her no utensils and yet expected her to eat it. In a very anti-climatic scene, she sat and pinched off several bites with her thumb and forefinger, and then signed that she was “all done.” When you understand that she could feed herself oatmeal out of a bowl (with a spoon) before her first birthday, maybe her reaction makes total sense.
My son on the other hand: I never posted his first birthday pictures (I should go back and do that!) but they were the typical fists-full-of-cake-and-chocolate-frosting-from-head-to-toe shots.
So as you can imagine, he is 17 months old and still doesn’t feed himself oatmeal. We have tried. But always flips the oatmeal across the room and gets frustrated when there is nothing on the spoon when he puts it into his mouth. We’re working toward that though.
Last night Daniel was working late. We had chicken tortilla soup for dinner–one of my favorites!–and I was already planning to give the kids their baths right after dinner, so I decided to let Micah try to eat the soup with a spoon. It’s very thick: lots of chicken, black beans, diced tomatoes, salsa, so it’s not like he would be dribbling broth down his chin, right?
Well, he tried the spoon for a while until the novelty wore off and the hunger overcame his desire to master the spoon. Then he began stuffing handfuls of soup into his mouth, and when the bowl was almost empty, he just picked it up and poured the rest into his mouth!
You can see that he thoroughly enjoyed the soup, and he wasn’t bothered one bit by the mess he had created all over himself and his high chair. There’s no way my son and daughter are related! 😉
In hindsight, I’m not sure whether Micah was actually “tackling” eating soup with a spoon? or if that was just me.
Either way, for more “Tackle It Tuesday,” stop by 5 Minutes for Mom!