Today I took William and Eleanor out for lunch with friends at Boston Market. William is finally able to feed himself finger food, so I was happy to supply him with a nice pile of corn, bits of bread, and macaroni and cheese. I was having a nice time, chatting with friends and consuming my own food, so I wasn’t watching each and every move William made. His food would disappear, and he kept making a grab for mine, so I’d keep giving him more.
It wasn’t until I took him out of the highchair that I learned the ugly truth: a circle of food particles radiating around him, both on the high chair and continuing on the floor for three feet in every direction. Did any of the food ever get in his mouth?
It’s like he was a snowplow — how they appear to suck up the snow, when they are really blowing it behind them. William was a little foodplow: I gave him food, and instead of being consumed, it was merely tossed into the air as soon as it touched his hand.
Well, that’s misleading. He didn’t throw the food. I would have noticed that. It was just like he had become a little cloud at the center of a foodstorm, raining debris all over the clean floors of the Boston Market.
Sigh.
On the topic of babies throwing stuff:
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Overboard! by Sarah Weeks — a bouncy, rhythmic paean to the baby’s favorite pastime: chuckin’ stuff. This book’s text is mega-addictive (“Slippy, sloppy, can of peaches / Yummy peaches, nice and fat / Peaches going OVERBOARD! / Good-bye, peaches! Splat! Splat! Splat!”). Sam William’s watercolors are Popsicle-bright and adorable. A read that comes very close to the chaotic deliciousness of any baby.
*OKAY. For some reason, WordPress is being particularly stupid right now, and won’t upload my picture into this space. So just go follow the link, okay? I’ll try to add the image later . . . (grr).
Casa Camisas 