Something to Chew On

It's almost Christmas and you couldn't care less. You do love the sparkling trees that have, inexplicably, popped up in every house you visit and sometimes appear smack dab in the middle of the street. A well decorated tree (read: lots of hand-blown glass ornaments and those expensive Radko glitter encrusted ones) will keep you occupied for a good twenty to thirty minutes. Next year, we'll have to erect a security fence around the tree but this year your immobile and I'm really thankful.

The big news this Christmas will not be the gifts (although your dad and I are making you one pretty awesome set of drums out of thrift store pots and pans which we may regret when the decibel level starts to rise) or the big guy in the red suit. This year it's all about Christmas dinner; finally you'll get to join in the feast! Christmas falls just four days shy of your 6 month birthday and by all accounts you're ready for some culinary exploration. And of course, as I've quickly learned in this journey of parenting, every milestone reached wrenches the heart just a little.

For the past five months and few odd weeks you've foraged for food in just one place. Sometimes you've stopped by Ma's House of Delectable Dishes for a quick snack, sometimes for a prolonged linen-napkin and candle-lit affair. Basically, it's been a table for two for as long as you've been alive and I'm a little jealous of our time together. Obviously, the tap will remain open for as long as we both find it convenient but the table settings are about to change.

I love food so much that sharing this experience with you is also a little exciting. We're planning to skip the jars of mish-mashed stuff and move straight to the real stuff--sweet potatoes, carrots, avocado (if you can beat me to it), squash (no worries there, it's all yours), pears, bananas, apples. The idea behind this baby-led-weaning, is that you experience food in it's original form and start to make decisions about how much you eat and how you eat it. You get to mix the flavors together (there's no pureed "mixed vegetable" involved) and I won't have to make the sound of a choo-choo train to get you to open up. Less stress for me and more fun for you--what's not to love?

As your dad and I were eating at the Dekalb Farmers' Market last night I watched kids at a table next to us lap up a plate full of Indian spiced vegetables, leafy spinach and fried okra. I hope you learn to love that kind of variety of texture and taste. Then I bit into a heart of palm and was briefly reminded of the way your breath smells--a smell I would love to make a scratch 'n sniff sticker of if I could figure out how to capture it. There's something so unbelievably pure about that smell and I'll sure miss it when it's replaced by carrots and pears. I guess I'll be buying lots of hearts of palm. But for now, I've got a table for two reserved in about thirty minutes at your favorite little diner and I hear the dishes are always served up with a smile.