"take THAT, mommy!"

No sooner had I posted these words:

You're also not the hugest fan of the sweet potato puffs yet, but you do enjoy practicing picking them up (although really, you just hit it several times until it sticks to your hand).

...when Jude woke up and it was time to eat. I sat him in his cool orangey dottey highchair and proceeded to feed him the goodness that his homemade baby food. Which means it was probably one cube of avocados, one cube of papaya, one cube of potatoes, and one cube of kiwi...or some other ridiculously random combination of fruits and vegetables that depends entirely on my mood earlier that morning when I pull the cubes out of the freezer to thaw.

Phew. Run on sentence, much?

And my stubborn little kiddo just would NOT eat his food from the spoon. He would seriously clamp his lips shut and turn his head like, "are you kidding me?! papaya?? do you see any OTHER nine month olds eating papaya?

...hippie."

So I gave up and in a last ditch effort, sprinkled some of those sweet potato puffs across his tray. And do you know what that kid did?

He took his chubby little thumb and pointer finger and carefully, very carefully, he moved it toward a puff. He clamped that little thumb and pointer finger together on the puff. Then ever so slowly, he moved the clamped puff toward his face. Then he used his other chubby little hand to help guide the puff to his mouth. Very slowly, he put the puff in his mouth.

I watched in amazement as he started to chew the puff and dove in for another. One after the other, he at at least ten or twelve puffs this way - always using both hands to guide the puff to his mouth, and leaving his hands over his mouth as he chewed as if to say, "I have a super secret ninja puff eating skill that we can't let ANYone else know about."

After four or five puffs, I realized that this is a huge deal and quite a milestone, so like any other self-respecting first time Mom, I whipped out the video camera and quickly texted Shawn of this amazing feat. I wish I could upload the video, but Blogger's being kind of a butt, so it'll have to wait for another day.

So wow, huh? I have a self feeder on my hands. Good thing, too. One time at Matt and Patrice's house, I put a bit of tomato sauce on my finger to let Jude have a taste, and it apparently gave him the shimmies. We all thought it was too cute, so I kept doing it, and after every taste - he'd shimmie. Since then, smartypants has decided that he'll trust NOTHING coming at him from my hands. Most of the time, he'll take food on a spoon from me, but if I try to finger feed him anything, I get the "over my dead body" look.

Why hello there, world of self-feeding thank you for inviting us to join you - you look quite pleasant!