The Guessing Game

Whenever I come home from work, one of the questions I ask Mommy is "what did Kaylani (and you) have for lunch?" The answer is usually either direct ("harvest turkey dinner"), non-descript ("one of those turkey things"), or not answered ("don't ask..it was a bad day"). Since Kaylani is also eating pretty much everything we're eating as well, any one of those answers (except maybe the last one) could include things like bread, chicken, peas, beef, etc. That's where "the guessing game" comes in.

It's not that I ask Kaylani had for lunch when I come home just because I want to know (especially on a "not answered" day). I ask because it usually will sway the dinnertime decision. More importantly though, I ask to avoid playing "the guessing game" later on that night. For those of you unfamiliar with "the guessing game", let me fill you in.

"The guessing game" is something we play after Kaylani poops, and there are 2 parts. The first part is "guess if Kaylani actually pooped or not." That's the easy part. Taking a peek in back, or through the leg, usually tells us if we were right or wrong. The 2nd part of the "game" is the harder part. That's when we try and guess what Kaylani ate to make her poop look like it does. For instance, last night, Kaylani's poop was red. Not red like there was blood in it, but just tinted red throughout. After racking our brains to try and guess what could have caused it, we ended on watermelon. While we're not sure that was the cause, it sure was a better guess than mashed potatoes, green beans, or turkey.

While this game may sound disgusting to some, it's just another part of parenthood that we've fully embraced. In fact, while changing Kaylani's poopy diaper tonight, Mommy came over to see if she had to guess again. Since the poop was just plain brown, there was no game tonight (ah the exciting lives of parenthood). It reminds me of a scene from Baby Mama which we just watched this weekend. A baby comes in with brown stuff on her arm. The mom asks if it's chocolate or poop, and without hesitation, licks it. With a smile on her face, she goes "it's chocolate"! The other sister, throughly disgusted, says a bunch of things in disbelief, but turns out, that's what parenthood is all about. That scene hit home pretty hard. We're parents now, and that's something we know for sure.

Baby's First Feeding

Today, Kaylani took one giant step forward in her development milestones and had her first taste of food ever. Her bib, clothes, chin, and neck had their first feel of food ever too, and it's probably safe to say they felt more food than Kaylani actually ate. But that was to be expected so we pressed onwards. Once the media circus was ready (video camera on tripod, camera on remote standby), we began.

For Kaylani's first food of "choice," Daddy made her a nice helping of Gerber Single Grain Cereal mixed with breastmilk. I'm not entirely convinced that I did it right since it came out pretty watery, but I followed the directions as closely as possible. So instead of the solid consistency that we were expecting, Kaylani got a semi-solid, mostly liquid, bowl of "cereal" to munch on. Or at least that's what she got to push out of her mouth.

Kaylani's been staring at us and our food at dinnertime for awhile now, so we know she's been waiting to try her own food. She even opens her mouth if she's in your lap when you're trying to eat. So it was no surprise to us that she opened her mouth real wide when we brought the spoon to her mouth for the very first time. Daddy had the honor of Kaylani's first spoonful of food, so he had a front row seat of the food going in, and then coming right back out. Spoon #2 went the same way, but I think she might have taken some of it that time.

On and on we went. Soon it was Mommy's turn and she did a bit better because she's mastered the spoon and re-spoon technique (that's where you put the food in her mouth, then quickly move the spoon back to catch the food on its way out, and do it again and again until either she's swallowed the food, or it's splattered all over her face/neck/bib that there's no more left).

Overall, I'd say she did pretty damn well for her first time with food. She had almost 2 ounces of milk mixed in with 1 tablespoon of cereal in her bowl, and she probably ate 90% of it. The other 10% got spilled down her face into her bib when we gave her what was left in the bowl just for kicks. We'll try again tomorrow at dinner, and the next day after that too with rice cereal and hopefully she'll get the hang of it sooner rather than later. I hope it's sooner, because the sooner she gets the hang of it, then the sooner we can try new and more exciting foods!

Check out pictures from our feeding adventure today, and also pictures from Puerto Rico! We had over 600 pictures to choose from, but I think I picked 60 that cover the week pretty well. And come back tomorrow for videos from Kaylani's first feeding adventure. I'm sure they'll give a much better idea of how it went!