I think all parents do silly things to humor their children from time to time. It's one of the privileges of parenthood.
We recently purchased a used play set from someone via craigslist. Ben and a friend (and one of our new neighbors, pulled in at the last minute) were able to get it moved to our back yard on Saturday, but we have not yet been able to get it put together (tearing it apart and moving it took longer than expected). Of course having all of these pieces in the back yard - especially a slide - and not being able to play on them is rather frustrating for an almost 3-year old. So Ben humored him on Saturday night, lifting the slide up so he could go down it.
We've had some gorgeous weather the past few days so this scenario has played out multiple times, and I've even lifted up the slide myself. Hopefully we can get some help on Saturday to get the set put back together. It's amazingly difficult to round up 5 adults on the weekend in the spring!
(One final note: don't you love the too-small hat Jonah wears in the video? He insisted upon wearing it, even though a winter hat was unnecessary.)
Although our pediatrician had suggested we try introducing Jude to solid foods after our four-month check-up (in order to get more calories into him), we decided to stick with our plan to delay solids until six months, continuing to reap the health benefits of breast milk, minimizing the development of food allergies that are sometimes tied to an early introduction of solids, and maintaining my supply. We had introduced Jonah to solids after six months and felt that it had worked well with him and that we would repeat it this time around. While Jude's weight gain has been very slow, and he continues to be at the absolute bottom of the charts for weight (just 11 pounds 5 ounces at his 6-month check-up today), he's been on track developmentally. Although we were concerned about his weight, we felt the benefits of continuing with the original plan were worth it.
Whereas Jonah had not necessarily shown a lot of interest in eating solid food before we introduced it, Jude has been showing some signs that he has been ready. He watches us eat and occasionally grabs at our silverware and plates when he sits on our laps at a meal. He often stares at Jonah during meal times as well. We've had Jude sitting in the table in the high chair at meals with us for about a month, and while he tends to slouch to one side, he can support himself just fine.
What is going on here?
We'd planned to offer Jude solids for the first time last Saturday and opted to start with sweet potatoes again as they are a staple in our house and the avocados weren't yet ripe. We weren't quite sure how Jonah might react to all of the attention we
knew we were going to give Jude when he had this experience. Jonah
sometimes exhibits some signs of jealousy, and we knew we needed to be
sensitive to his feelings but also true to our desire to document the
moment as we wanted. We lucked out in that Jonah had resisted his nap
earlier in the afternoon and ended up falling asleep on the couch while I
read to him late in the afternoon. He slept on the couch while we took
our time feeding Jude. A win-win for all!
I'm supposed to eat this, right?
Trying to figure this out...
Not so sure about this any more...
Jude has been doing remarkably well with the solids! While he's still
trying to figure out how to work the food to the back of his mouth, and
it has a tendency to come back out, he's actually had a pretty decent
intake. We did three days of sweet potatoes before offering him avocado
at dinner time yesterday, and I actually had to prepare additional
avocado for him. He had avocado again tonight and ate a generous amount.
We may find that we can move much more quickly through a variety of
textures with Jude. While I don't mind making purees, it's nice to be
able to serve table-type food as well!
Ben caught it on video (while also taking photos):
