The Ruark Kids

Cheerios Rock!

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At Siena’s last doctor’s appointment, our pediatrician asked, “Are you feeding her small solids like Cheerios yet?” I said, um, no, we weren’t really sure when to start that. He made a note–more of a check really–on his doctor’s tiny little pad of paper. Actually, each time I answered a question in some unfavorable way (no she’s not crawling yet; no she hasn’t been rolling over very much; no she isn’t saying anything other than Da Da; no she hasn’t discovered a new Mersenne prime yet), he made a little note. I was beginning to get worried about the number of notes he was making and what happens to that little notepad when we leave.

Thus inspired to advance Siena to the next stage of her culinary evolution, I bought a box of Cheerios. And I can say, without reservation or qualification, that Cheerios rock. I’d forgotten how small they are. She can down these things easily. So we spill a bunch on her tray, and watch her pound them into little bits (she likes pounding). Periodically she will manage to get one or two into her fist, and then begins the exercise to get the little inner-tube of oaty goodness into her mouth. She’s successful only about 30% of the time currently, and needs help putting them on her tongue when she fails and get frustrated.

She employs those little fangs of hers to cut them in half. Here we run into a problem. In Siena’s mouth-view of food, it seems to be that if a morsel is in her mouth yet outside the bounds of her teeth, then it’s better to let it languish on the periphery, shuffle down to her chin, and eventually fall to the tray or floor, than to try to scoop it up and swallow it. The practical upshot of which is that a good portion of Cheerios product that makes it into her mouth doesn’t actually get eaten.

Needless to say, the dog loves this entire process. The scorecard reads something like this: Dog-100, Siena-30.

P.S. I realize every other parent on the planet already knows about Cheerios. Nevertheless, it’s the little epiphanies of first-time parenthood that we are tracking here in the first place, so in the end, you just have to deal.

P.P.S. I need to remind myself to write a post about my grand unification theory of baby development and punctuated equilibrium.

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