An Eating Machine

Its time for a dramatic shift from yesterday's somewhat political discourse to the topic of my son.  While politics is all well and good, I can only take so much of it before I feel like yanking my hair out.  So in hopes of keeping as much hair on my head as possible before I actually go bald, I will switch topics.  Let me start by saying again that it is amazing to watch my son grow.  While he is still not walking yet despite his best efforts, he has become an eating machine when it comes to solid foods (or the mush that we like to call previously solid foods).  In a given solid food meal, he can now eat multiple pieces of fruit or vegetables.  On a regular basis, he might eat 2 peaches in a sitting, or the equivalent in sweet potatoes.  In a given day, he will eat 3-4 times.  That is a lot of food for such a small little body like his, yet he obviously needs it all to help his muscles develop and grow in addition to growing taller seemingly every week.  He is currently a bigger fan of fruit than he is of vegetables, so in an effort to get him eating both, we usually mix vegetables in with the fruit for a meal medley.  When it comes to fruit, however, he will eat essentially anything you give him.  By far though, it seems peaches are his favorite followed by mangoes as a second favorite.  At this point, we are starting to blend the food a little less leaving smaller chunks for him to chew on and swallow in preparation for even more solid foods coming very soon. 

We are not quite at the finger food stage of eating yet.  We tried cutting part of a banana into really small chunks for him to pick up and eat.  While he was able to figure out how to pick up the small chunks, he didn't get so far as actually putting the chunks in his mouth.  Rather, he would get them stuck to his hand, show us, and start waving it around trying to get it off.  Guess we will have to wait a little longer for the finger foods to start in.  Till then, we will keep on feeding him as much as he will eat and keep watching him grow.  In terms of growing, we think he might be going through another growth spurt.  The first indication we had was the increase in the amount of food we are feeding him.  The second is that every day he seems to be a little bit taller than the day before.  Not only is he growing vertically, but his face seems to change week to week.  Not a week goes by where I look at him and ask my wife, "Does our son look different to you?"  His features are developing slowly into more of a little boy than a baby and it is so much fun to watch how he looks more like my wife one week and myself the next.  Yet that is not all that he is up to.  I mentioned before that he is not quite walking yet and we are realizing that it is probably a good thing.  Even when being assisted by our hands for support, he will get as close to running on his two feet as possible forcing my wife and I to shuffle along hunched over with him.  Yet on the flip side, we kind of can't wait till he is walking so we don't have to shuffle along hunched over after him, we will simply have to run. 

Perhaps the most amazing development in my mind is the speed with which our son can now make it up our stairs to the second floor.  It used to take him upwards of ten minutes to get all the way up our stairs.  He would pause at each step, look around, gather his wits about him and struggle to get up the next one.  Perhaps it because he has grown a little in height, but he can now fly up the stairs in under five minutes.  He has gotten the hang of putting one knee on the step above him and lifting his other leg up and placing his foot flat on the step next to his knee.  The process used to be more drawn out as he used to have to get both knees on the step and then slowly get to standing.  Not anymore, it seems we have a StairMaster in the house.  The next thing we have to work on with him is showing him how to go down the stairs.  He has no clue how to maneuver himself down the stairs and simply lifts up his arms to get carried down.  All in due time I guess.  Last but not least, two more teeth are starting to make their appearance in his mouth bringing the total up to 10.  The biggest indication we had of new teeth was his shiny chest covered in drool.  All day long he drools and drools and drools.  But at least he doesn't complain about his incoming teeth too much.  I will take drool any day over complaining, not that I have a choice, but I would prefer the drool.  In any case, time for me to wrap up for today and start the process of getting myself ready for work.  Till tomorrow, enjoy your day.