Blech...Bananas!
This week we started solids with Amelia. She would sit in her highchair while we were eating and look like she was longing to have some of what we were eating and try to put food from our plates in her mouth if she was sitting on our laps. So, we decided that it was time, although I'm not looking forward to those stinky, smelly diapers! She certainly wasn't lacking nourishment, as she is in the 80th percentile for height and weight and has those cute little (big) rolls around her thighs!
When Jakob was a baby, I remember being so excited about this new milestone. Now it just means that I have to take extra time to feed another mouth in addition to nursing. Oh well, it's still a fun milestone. We started off with rice cereal and sweet potatoes, then on to pears with the cereal after that. The next fun taste was applesauce with rice cereal and then today bananas in oatmeal. 
She has done great with the texture of all of it and for the most part is so excited about putting something in her mouth that she kicks and squirms in anticipation. This morning was no different. She wanted to grab the spoon right away. None of my kids have ever liked the jarred bananas. Fresh bananas are always ok, but there is something about the preserved ones...maybe the citric acid that makes them a bit tangy. I tasted them this morning, and didn't think they were too bad. I mixed them into the oats and began to move the spoon toward my eager baby. She didn't think much of this spoonful. Benjamin and I laughed at her for a good 5 minutes as she made faces, moved the mixture around in her mouth and finally spit the whole blob out like a cork coming out of a bottle of champagne. It was hilarious. She obviously didn't care for this concoction. 
Being the experienced mom that I am :), I persisted, even though Ben insisted that he should eat it since Amelia didn't like it. (So far, the kids have wanted to eat all of her food except the sweet potatoes). After many more squimish faces and laughs, she finally was content to swallow and open her mouth for the next bite. We'll see what she thinks again this afternoon. She is really developing a little personalilty. This morning as we all sat at the table she talked to everyone using her hands to provide gestures. She had us all laughing hysterically as it appeared that she was telling us quite a story. She has four teeth now. She cut the top two on Oct. 1, and she is scooting all over the place on her belly, pulling herself with her arms. She also tootles around the house in her walker. This is such a fun sight because she can manuever it wherever she wants. She follows her siblings around, 'drives' over to Nick, goes down the hall looking for her brothers and then back to the living room.
Her sleep pattern is still pretty eratic as some nights she'll only wake up once, eat and go back to bed and other nights she'll be up several times. Yesterday I saw a friend with her newborn daughter and I couldn't believe how big Amelia was compared to her little bundle. Six months has gone so fast!!
