Playing with our food.

Adelaide hardly eats a good meal anymore. She's always go-go-go and doesn't want to sit still long enough to eat. When she is sitting in her booster seat at the table, she's always trying to climb out of it. In between each nibble, she attempts to stand and I have to sternly say "Sit down, Adelaide." And she does. Takes another nibble, repeat.

But I still offer good food. I try to give a variety though I feel I'm always feeding her the same things. Or, I'll cook a bunch of something and feed it to her daily with different sides.

Things she'll definitely eat: beans. Kidney, black, lentil, green. It doesn't matter, she loves them all. She'll also eat bread, crackers, things like that. She loves bananas. She takes big ole' bites and then looks like a chipmunk with full cheeks. She loves pasta, applesauce, broccoli, and yogurt (though we only give her a teensy bit of it at a time to avoid a big rash.) And thanks to my mom's offering, we now know she likes kalamata olives. Of course, there's more, but those are the biggies right now.

Most of all she loves to play with her food. If she's not down-and-out starving, she'll nibble and play. And I'll allow it until she starts throwing food on the floor and doing her cute "uh-oh." I figure, she's still learning about food, so what's the big deal (until there's a mess on the floor, then that's a big deal)?

Like this meal: black beans, and pita bread with hummus and olives.



Picked all the olives off and ate them first...



Ate some black beans. Then smushed her hands onto the hummus pita bread...



And look at that face when the pita stuck to her hand! Adorable! This is why I let her experience her food in her own way. She is learning all the time. This sticky stuff mama is trying to get me to eat? Lookie what it does to my hand! Wow!



My job is to offer healthy foods. So I do that. She just has to slow down and eat, dang it. :)