Elliot Eating, Part Two

So in just a matter of weeks, Elliot has gone from gagging on food so strongly he throws up, to begging for the food to be put in his mouth faster! It's been an amazing transformation.

Once the gag reflex subsided, he started accepting a wider variety of foods and will now pretty much eat anything we put in his big gaping maw. I've even started adding formula to some of his more liquidy foods in hopes that he'll get used to the flavor and take a bottle or two this weekend for Ryan while I'm away at the church's women's retreat. (Not sure I'll have enough milk pumped to last him the whole weekend, but I'm working on it!)

Just a week ago, he started wanting to eat more but still didn't have the mechanics of it down. He was so used to me putting bits of crumbled food like bread on his outstretched tongue, that every time I tried to get a spoon in there, his eager tongue would inadvertently push it out of the way. Today, after practicing a few times daily for a week, there is no tongue fighting my spoon and feeding him is a much simpler process. He will happily scarf down three meals a day.

Now all of a sudden, the big question isn't, "When will he start eating and growing?" but, "Whoops - he wants to eat all the time and we don't have anything to feed him!" So this morning while Jacob was at preschool, me and the girls took him to Pathmark for groceries to make baby food.

*Tangent: Three kids at the grocery store is immeasurably better than four. I'm not sure why, but I'm thinking it has something to do with a heaping dose of perspective... and only one kid walking around freely. End tangent.*

Now his daddy won't have any trouble figuring out what to feed him while I'm away - worrying about him refusing to take a bottle will be enough trouble!