According to Mary Poppins, a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down. It doesn’t do much for Afton to help the baby food go down. In fact, forget the medicine; even straight sugar won’t go down if it is presented on a spoon.
When Afton was nearly four months old I bought some rice cereal, a new set of bibs with cutesy phrases on the front, plastic bowls, and a set of baby sized spoons. I almost became emotional in the aisle. My eyes got a little misty imagining how happy my little girl would be. I could picture Afton delighting in each new taste sensation: warm rice, smooth oatmeal, tart peaches. I assumed Afton would enjoy eating solids–her brothers both did. I was wrong. Four months later, and Afton has spurned everything offered on spoon. She has yet to finish even a quarter of a jar of baby food.
Some of my favorite parenting memories center around feeding my baby boys. Ethan loved squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, and peaches so much his skin turned a nice orangey brown from a vitamin A build-up. I remember feeding Gerrit his first strained green beans. Ethan had abhorred the green-gray goo so I offered Gerrit some expecting the same hilarious look of revulsion to cross his face (I know it’s cruel). After a moment of savoring, he got this look on his face like, “Mom you’ve been holding out on me!”
I’ve heard of babies not liking baby food but I always figured the mothers were at fault. They probably didn’t try hard enough, and if they were my child they’d sit in a high chair and open wide like a hungry hatchling chirp chirp chirping for the next bit of regurgitated worm.
Actually, that seems to be exactly what Afton pictures when we try to feed her, “Great! Here they come trying to stick regurgitated worm in my mouth again.” When we try to feed her Afton is ready for a fight. She can bat the spoon away equally well with her left and right hands. If you penetrate that first line of defense, she’ll start evasive head maneuvers, swinging her head from side to side to avoid the spoon. If you press the attack and get the spoon into her mouth, and deposit even a few molecules of food on her tongue she’ll shudder and expel the offending foreign object.
Maybe this is all a post traumatic reaction to having her tongue-tying frenulum clipped when just a few days old. Her little subconscious might have logged, “Note to self: Cold metal objects in my mouth are thoroughly unpleasant. Avoid at all costs.” Or maybe she is rebelling against any perception of a privileged lifestyle. No one’s going to accuse her of being raised with a silver spoon in her mouth–Power to the people–Stick it to the Mama!
Whatever the source of Afton’s aversion to jarred baby food, it’s not yet cause for panic. She’s certainly not wasting away — probably at least 20 pounds and with thighs ideal for a Peter Paul Rubens painting. And she is slowly starting to eat some foods. Afton, like every other member of the Smith clan, loves popcorn. She also likes ice cream licked from a cone. She’s willing to try lots of table food, in fact, just as long as we leave the spoons in the drawer.
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