Eating Machine

Well, that Katie certainly is not. At her most recent checkup, I learned that she's only gained 1 1/2 pounds in the last 4 months! My poor starving baby! No wonder she was devouring all the crumbs off the floor that she could find! We think it happened for two reasons: for one, Katie is SO darn active, it's no wonder she can barely eat enough calories to keep up! Her pediatrician likened her to a Kenyan marathon runner. :) For another, she's never really liked eating solids -- or maybe it's simply being stuck in a highchair. I used to say that I could probably get Katie to eat more if I just sprinkled her food on the floor beneath Miriam's chair. We could also get her to eat more when we held her in our laps, but we'd also end up with baby-food-smeared shirts.

Katie can eat some finger foods, she's really into this whole eating thing more. She's very independent generally, so I shouldn't be surprised that this trait would surface during mealtimes too. I'm guessing she's going to be like her Uncle Joe and fix herself breakfast by the time she's three. :)

But until she can feed herself totally independently, I've been trying to give her the most nutrient-dense stuff I can find. Her breakfast these days consists of porridge made of ground brown rice & kidney beans, with a slice of avocado & cooked egg yolk mixed in, with maybe a little applesauce for sweetener. Disgusting, isn't it? :) And she devours it.

Here was her first officially solid food -- cooked egg yolk. (I've been eating lots of egg salad lately!) Naturally, she squished it up and smeared it all over her tray and herself.


egg in face

Her long fluffy hair makes mealtimes that much more interesting. After letting her try some cottage cheese on her own (for the first and last time) I heard Miriam exclaim, "Mommy, she gots white in her hair!" This picture doesn't nearly do it justice.


cheese head

By far, her messiest meal was the day I decided to let her eat some avocado by herself. That's when she discovered finger painting with food. By the time she was done, she looked like a martian, and everything within reach was green too. Naturally I couldn't find the camera to take a picture!

It's really funny how different our kids are showing themselves to be. For one thing, unlike her big sister, Katie LOVES vegetables. One night she just about threw a tantrum because Mr. Pickles wasn't giving her broccoli as fast as she thought she deserved it! And that's something Miriam won't touch for all our attempts to cutesy it up by calling it "little broccoli trees".


broccoli

Katie is also a meat-lover -- she loooooooooves chicken. Here, she was holding the bone in her mouth and humming to it:


carnivore

Our kids are sort of like Jack Sprat & his wife -- Katie loves meat and vegetables, while Miriam loves bread & fruit. What I find funny is that I craved the opposite things during their pregnancies -- for Miriam, I craved steak & salad, for Katie, I craved breads & sweet things. Maybe I overloaded them! :)