Infant oatmeal, and a drooling infant:
The instructions on the box said 1tsp of oatmeal mixed with 5tsps of breastmilk/formula. Uh, no. I am not wasting breastmilk on something she had a high likelihood of spitting right back out. So, I mixed it with prepared formula. I thought it would be more oatmeal-ish in texture. But it wasn't. The dry oatmeal in the box more resembled almost see through flakes (like how eggwhite flakes up when it dries on the counter). In additional, if I were to mix it according to the instructions, it would be super thin in consistency. After mixing, I was hoping for more like an oatmeal gruel consistency. So, I decided to tweak the recipe. I took a tablespoon of oatmeal (flakes?) and mixed it with a tablespoon of prepared formula. It was still watery-ish, but at least it could hold its own on a spoon.
A spoon. Humph.
Utensils are on Corinne's Christmas wish list, but it's not Christmas yet. Now to find a utensil to deliver said oatmeal gruel. Our regular silverware was probably too big for her, and she may be turned off by having metal in her mouth, so I decided to get a plastic spoon instead. I open up the pantry to find one, and lo and behold, there was a bag of teeny tiny plastic spoons (I think they came with pudding cups back in the day). Eureka! The black hole that is the pantry provides!
I made myself some dinner, then Corinne and I sat down at the table. Her, with her watery oatmeal gruel, and me, with my chicken salad sandwich with tomato soup...yum. She decided that the leftover Halloween candy looked the best of all (can't fault that logic):
To understand this next section, I need to take you back to 1985. I was 4 or 5 at the time and they were handing out snacks in kindergarten. We all lined up according to our last name and waited to receive our snack. In this case, a frozen fudge pop. Apparently, health did not much matter in the mid 80's. The girl to my left, who also had a last name that started with a "B", got her fudge pop and dove in. Within 30 seconds, it was all over her face. Maybe she thought that the fudge pop made a better exfoliating cleanser than a food? Who knows, but the end result was that she had a hard time connecting the fudge pop with her mouth, and the idea of using a napkin or washing her face afterwards was a foreign concept. I was totally grossed out. I distinctly remember thinking "Dude, that is effin' gross. Learn to use an effin' napkin or learn how to eat." But I'm sure my thoughts were a bit more "G" rated and did not contain as many "effin's". I thought it was just the fudge pop. Nope. Each time food was handed out, I had to sit right next to the fudge pop chick. And each time, without fail, she managed to get more on her face and hands than in her mouth. It didn't matter what she was eating. It could have been bread and she would still have it smeared all over her face within 30 seconds. The grossest part is that she would then walk around, for the rest of the day with food all over her face. I spent the better part of my kindergarten year being grossed out by "fudge pop chick".
Ever since then, I get easily skeeved out by babies with food on their face. Since the majority of people my age are having kids, my Facebook feed to filled to the brim with baby pictures. Lots of these pictures involve the baby's looking like they had their head and chest dunked in pureed peas. My visual sense is repeatedly accosted many times a week by over sharing parents. I don't know what compels people to think that their baby covered in pureed food is so cute or endearing that it needs to be shared with the facebook world, but it seems like a lot of people think this way. I will give a pass for the first birthday smash cake photos. But any other food is just plain gross.
I was hoping that when it was MY own kid covered in food, it would be cute. But it's not. It's still rather nasty looking. I did take some pictures and will post them here. And only here. My co-workers/high school/college friends do not need to log into their Facebook only to be brutally molested by the image of a food covered baby (no matter how cute the baby in question is).
You have been warned...
Then she put her hands in her mouth, further spreading the oatmeal everywhere. I may have sat there with a look of horror upon my face:
The post feeding episode carnage:
I'm glad I tried it when she was hungry, as she ended up eating most of it. So, I'm going to call it a success. We might even try it again tomorrow.
I tried taking a video. Our Ruebenesque-feline used to not be able to jump up on the table or counter from the floor. But now with her new lithe body, compliments of the vet-ordered diet, combined with a "Dear God, Woman, feed me NOWWWWW!" demeanor, she can easy jump onto the table and counters in search of food. Hence the reason why the cat makes a cameo:
http://youtu.be/bYDihbnl8Lo
