Isn't This Supposed To Be Fun?

I have such a colored memory of life when The Boy was really little. Especially when he was at the same age that The Girl is now. It doesn't help that when The Boy was almost 6 months old I was going through arguably one of the worst times in my life. The Ex told me she thought it might be over when he was 4 months old and she actually moved out of our house on his 6 month birthday. The Girl will be 6 months old on the 20th of this month. So I suppose there is pretty good reason that I don't completely recall exactly what went on at this stage of his babyhood.

However.

I don't think that my foggy memory is only because of what was going on in my personal life. I think we very conveniently forget about some of the crappier stages when we move on to the better ones. I think it is a built in thing that Mommy's experience. We forget how horrible child birth was because we remember seeing that precious face for the first time. We forget how horribly they slept when they were little once they are sleeping through the night. I know this because two of my closest friends have babies that were born 2 months and 4 months after The Girl. So they are going through the stages after we are. And my one friend who is 4 months behind us has a 6 week old and is going through that 6 week old hell stage and I had completely forgotten about it since we are past it. In fact, I had to go back on my blog and look up what was going on during that stage of The Girl's life to remember just how crappy it was.

All of this is to say that I don't remember solid foods to be this annoying. I remember my little baby sitting cutely in his high chair opening his little bird mouth and eating the foods with a smile on his face. I remember him taking his chubby little hands and bringing the little bite size puffs to his mouth and being so excited when he finally got one in the right place.

I conveniently don't remember the very beginning when they don't know how to eat solid foods. I don't remember when they don't even know to open their mouths. And I definitely don't remember actually being frustrated at my precious little bundle and thinking things like, "Okay kid. If we are doing this solid thing, you have got to figure it out! I don't have time for this dawdling..." Granted I have horrible PMS that is contributing to my moods (thanks for coming back monthly friend, I really missed you!) but still...I just don't remember this.

Here is a picture of my daughter, lips tightly locked shut giving me the look like, "I don't know what that is...but it certainly doesn't look like a boob..."

Now once the food gets in her mouth, she seems to enjoy it. She licks and chomps away and looks like she really wants to consume what you have given her. But unfortunately over half of what I managed to shove into her mouth comes back out in the process of swallowing. So I have to scrape it off her face and look for that golden opportunity of when the "door" opens enough for me to shove more in. And trying to get her to open her mouth? Well I am hooting and hollering and choo choo-ing and buzzing, and basically doing anything I can think of to make her smile so that I can shove food into an open gap. Again and again and again. It's exhausting.
And during this time, The Boy is running around like a crazy child pretending he is Spiderman. And in between running from the kitchen into the living room and back into the kitchen he points out that HE is hungry and that perhaps when I am done feeding the baby I might like to give him something to eat. What? You don't want to wait an extra hour for your dinner because I happen to be giving your sister solid foods? What's wrong with you?

Of course every time he comes into the kitchen "flinging his webs" The Girl has to follow him with her head and therefore I can't even GET to her mouth to try and shove food in. So the process takes a lot longer than it is supposed to. And the entire time I am thinking in my head, "Why did I want to give her solid food again?" And then I remember. She was starving. She had gone back to only sleeping 3 hours at a time. My boobs practically have blisters on them. She was going through milk like it was going out of style. She is totally ready for solids. And if I give her credit, she is really liking them. We have done bananas and apples and now sweet potatoes all mixed with her rice cereal. I can tell she is going to really dig this whole food thing once she figures it out. But for now? Good lord, it is exhausting trying to give her a meal. She turns her head, she looks everywhere BUT at me, she refuses to open her mouth, she spits out half of what she managed to get in, she rubs her hands all over her filthy mouth and then rubs her eyes and hair and holy crap, now we have to have ANOTHER bath and... And can we just get to that cute point where she looks at me and smiles and opens her little bird mouth to eat? I'm ready to hit that stage. And in the meantime, she will look at me like I'm nuts because I am trying to document her NOT eating for my blog and she will just laugh in her head and refuse to do anything...EXCEPT grab the camera. That seems like it is a really good idea. Sigh...