Adventures with food

Watching Mariko learn to feed herself has been so much fun. She clearly loves to eat and has a serious determination to do so. I started with her just sitting on my lap and not too long after that, she started reaching for my food. So I would leave little pieces of things for her to grab as I was eating. Around the time that she turned 6 months old my dad bought her her highchair. The Tripp Trapp is incredible and we love it. It looks like a big kid chair (with an addition to help her not fall out of it) and allows her to sit at the table with us when we eat. I love having her involved in meals that way, with her own place at the table and everything. I think that she likes it too.

We've been doing the food thing about 6 weeks or so now and so far she's really seemed to like everything. We need to come back to peas and avocado though as peas made her cheeks really red and avocado made her spit up (that was the first thing I gave her and I think it might have just been too much at the beginning). I think that she has favorites and honestly, it's mostly fruit - peaches and pears I would say are her favorite - but she also LOVES broccoli. Yesterday she started raspberries and it is fun to watch her working on her pincer grasp! I really believe that kids should eat this way, it's so much more natural than purees and even though it's really messy, the prep is so much easier. I also think it's good, especially for a kid like Mariko who was early and is still a bit behind, because it makes her work on her coordination and fine motor skills. 

I can't wait for the day when she will just eat what we eat and I can just give her food off my plate. So looking forward to that!