Food Wars

This picture is hilarious to me.  Russell doesn't really look that cute but it is illustrative of what it is often like to feed that boy. He usually battles me for the spoon the entire time.  By the end, he is so desperate for the spoon that he is practically climbing out of his chair to get it from me and whining in his baby moans and grunts, "I want it Mom. I want it so so so bad! Why do you get to hold it and not me? Why won't you give it to me? That is going to be so gratifying to suck on and you won't let me do it. You are so mean!  Grrr!!!"  

At first, we used to give him a spoon to hold on to while we fed him with a different spoon. It only worked so so. As you can see from the photo, he usually ended up with both spoons, which defeated the whole reason I gave him a spoon to hold in the first place.  Now I just use one arm as defence against his aggressive grabbing and the other arm to strategically feed him.  He does a great job of simultaneously reaching for the spoon and opening his mouth to recieve his next bite. 

So the question/caption for the above photo is "Victory or defeat"?  He looks exhausted from our great battle, but a little smug too, like "I got the spoons, Mom, not you." 

This picture is an obvious victory.  If there was any doubt, I always let him play with the spoon at the end of his meal, mostly because it keeps him occupied for a good five minutes as I play Clean Up After Baby.  He gets another victory if he can figure out how to take off his bib and suck on it while holding his spoon.   

This victory is similar to the battle he wages while nursing as he usually likes to simultaneously and frantically search for the tag of my boppy (nursing pillow). "Where is it?" he seems to be saying. "I know there is a silky long tag somewhere around here. I want to hold it and put it in my mouth soooo bad. The way it feels in my mouth is amazing...A-MA-ZING!  It is so smooth and coated in my old saliva. I could just suck on that all day. And my mom won't let me look for it while I nurse. She is so rude! Grr. Why can't I wiggle around for it?  Why why why??!!" 

At the end of each nursing session, he knows the drill. I sit him up, flip the pillow around, and he immediately grabs the tag and inserts it into his mouth. Tags are the perfect desert for him. Not for me though. I prefer cookies and brownies.  I wish I could go for fruit but I have little willpower in that department.