Feeding Time Struggles

The kids have me constantly worrying about their diets. Henry is a little butterball turkey, so he's obviously getting plenty of nourishment, but since I started pumping, I've become obsessed with how many ounces he eats and whether I'm producing enough for him, blah blah blah. Same annoying worries I had when I pumped with Asher. I stopped nursing Henry altogether for about five days last week because he has started becoming violent with the goods - my guess is he's frustrated because he thinks taking the bottle is easier - he gets to look around and I'm sure the flow is faster with a bottle. But, I started nursing again, and he's tamed down a little bit. Sometimes. We've also started him on solid foods. He's improved his eating skills quite a bit - he's getting better at swallowing instead of pushing the food out with his tongue and now opens his mouth when the spoon nears his pudgy face. And with the introduction of food comes STINKY diapers and MESSY mealtimes. I'd forgotten how frustrating it is to feed someone who flails his arms constantly and blows raspberries with a mouth full of food.

And then you have Asher.

The foods he'll eat: chicken nuggets, fish sticks, french fries, most fruit (with the exception of cantaloupe and honeydew), corn, grilled cheese sandwiches, plain noodles (don't even try putting any sauce or cheese on them), white rice (with just salt, pepper & butter), yogurt, any kind of bread, and cereal. I finally got him to eat a few bites of a peanut butter & jelly sandwich last weekend, and he said it was good, but I'm not adding it to the list quite yet. Of course he's OK with any kind of junk food you have to offer, and ketchup. This is what's all over his face in this picture. He'll eat it plain if we let him. He also likes to eat salt & pepper directly out of the shakers when we go out to eat. Do you know how grossed out I get when I look away for a second and look back to find him licking the top of a sticky pepper shaker? Almost as grossed out as I get when he does something like lick the floor at a restaurant under the table. Yeah. He won't eat macaroni and cheese or any vegetable, but he'll lick the floor at McDonald's.


Oh, and I did convince him to try cucumber last week. He nibbled a little bit on a slice before becoming completely distracted with the seeds, which he pushed around all over the table like tiny slimy cars, yelling, "BEEP BEEP!" I don't know if he liked it much, but I felt like buying him a car out of the happiness I felt over the fact that he tried something green.