Baby gastronomy

I remember the first bit of food we gave our daughter.  We were sat in our lounge, exhausted as usual, and yet a little excited.  As huge foodies, it was always going to be a monumental event, giving our precious little offspring her first taste of solid food.  Clearly it was going to have some logistical benefits too - such as not having to make twenty five bottles of formula every day.  

We'd gone with baby rice, like I think most parents do, smooth, easy to swallow, bland, essentially the polar opposite of everything that most human beings would class as food... and well, I think she liked it.  I'm not really sure, observing her screwing her face up wondering what we'd put in her mouth and then promptly swallowed - not much has changed in six months to be honest.

My wife and I would like to think that we are enabling India to develop an educated pallet.  We have tried her on everything from home-made Thai green turkey curry to fish pie and she has always demolished everything that has been put within six yards of her mouth.  As a parent who has always has that niggling thought in the back of their head of whether she'll magically turn into a fussy eater when she hits three, I'm loving the fact that she'll eat anything.  When I say anything, I mean ANYTHING!

It therefore came as no surprise today that she had decided to extend her gastronomic landscape quite substantially on her own steam - to the point where gastronomy didn't actually come into it any more.  On leaving for work this morning, and being no more than half an hour down the road, the wife called.  

Now this is generally quite unusual in itself, as I'm pretty sure that when I walk out the door on most mornings, she will pop India back in her room and grab another forty winks - not this morning.  By the sounds of things the total opposite had happened and whilst the wife was brewing her morning caffeine hit, India had decided that she'd like to sample the tasty delights that the living room has to offer.  From our gas fire, she had treated herself to a piece of the mock coals.  Apparently she had made rather light work of the outer coating and gnawed her way to the inner core - not bad considering she's only got eight teeth!

You can only imagine what might be next on her cartes du jour.  Later in the day when I popped to the local supermarket, she rediscovered one of her favourite delicacies, paper.  As I was nipping in, I gave the trolley a miss and carried her, meaning that within approximately three and a half minutes into the aisle wandering she started getting squirmy.  

Once at the tills, in order to keep her entertained I handed her one of the money off vouchers that you get in the orange supermarket.  I continued to pocket my wallet and pick up the food, when I turned to look at her once more, she had devoured half of it.  I'm not sure whether it was the excitement of 40p off her next purchase of spices that overcame her, or the bright coloured picture, but all I could see was a white mush milling around in her oh so innocent mouth.  

I quickly hooked my little finger into her mouth to retrieve as much as I could to be promptly met with a lurch of her head so that she could finish chewing on what she obviously thought was the tastiest treat she'd had that day.  The 'Please ask for assistance' guy stood near me, looked at me as though I'd not fed my child for a week as I whisked past, juggling baby, potatoes and the remainder of the voucher in my hands. That will be the last time I do that.

For afternoon snacks we've been heavily relying on baby rice cakes and toast.  Perhaps now, after this display of her culinary ambition, it's time to change it up a bit - coasters and cheese anyone?