Soylicious!

During a moment of motherhood reflection the other day, I realized that a really solid portion of my waking hours over the last sixteen months or so have been spent trying to somehow get nourishment into this girl. Clara is a great eater and there are very few things she won't eat, yet between 13 months of breastfeeding, then the challenge of getting her to eat solid foods, then the task of teaching her to feed herself with her hands, and now working with her on being able to spoon/fork feed herself, I feel like it's a never ending project! Fortunately I have witnessed countless children who, at some point, are extremely proficient at total self-feeding. For example, I have never seen a kindergartner who could not eat completely by herself. This gives me hope.

Actually, Clara has been doing well with her spoon/fork feeding. At the very least, she thinks it's enormously novel. Yesterday at dinner Jeremy helped her to spear some of her delicious chicken onto her fork, and then she successfully speared several pieces of her own. And then it just became too difficult, but she was so proud of herself for holding her own fork that she never put it down, and in fact before picking up each piece of chicken with her fingers she would give a perfunctory tap with her fork onto her plate. *tap* *tap* *tap*, pick up chicken with fingers... You get the idea.

She has had great success with self-feeding thicker liquids and cereals, like Farina, oatmeal, and this delectable soy yogurt. I think I should send this picture to Silk to see if they want to give her money for being so cute while eating their product. I practically wanted to pay her myself!