Solids = WINNING!

We seem to have found a winner! Rice cereal was a no go (and for good reason, have you tried that stuff???) but Junior loves himself some oatmeal. And he's actually starting to get the hang of swallowing too (meaning most of it goes down his throat instead of squishing back out of his mouth). We're still working on the "no talking with your mouth full" rule though. Of course regardless of whether or not he's talking (and therefore spraying oatmeal everywhere), this is one place where he takes after his mommy. Meaning we both prefer to wear more food than we actually eat. This is also where that vinyl tablecloth would come in really handy. Now to just get over our sheer laziness and get the damn thing out before he's 20. (Of course if he's still taking after mommy at 20, the table cloth will still come in handy.)

 I have to admit, I was actually looking forward to solids this time around. Mainly because I have got to start getting more sleep. Poor Kevin is tired of me going to bed at 9:30 every night, but that's about the time of night when I can no longer keep my eyes open. I've done my research and know that according to studies done by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) there is no link between infants eating solids and sleeping through the night. However after listening to person after person (after person, after person) INSIST that giving him solids will fill him up so that he'll sleep, I figured it couldn't hurt to try. We gave him some oatmeal about an hour before bed on Saturday night and lo and behold, he slept for 7 hours straight. He hasn't done that since he was 10 weeks old. My initial thought (at 3:30 am when he finally woke up) was "Are you freaking kidding me? That's all it took?!?!" "YES! The AAP is WRONG!" Of course that didn't stop him from getting up at 6:30 on Sunday morning, which normally would have sucked, but we used being up as the crack of dawn as an opportunity to visit the International House of Pleasure (see the note below). So on Sunday night we gave him his oatmeal again. This time we got to see his bright shining face at 11:30p, 2:30a, 4:30a, and 6:30a. So now I'm back on the "if you think solids help, you're smoking crack" bandwagon. The next person that tells me that I need to give him solids to make him sleep through the night will probably get a boot upside the head. Which in my sleep-deprieved state of mind, I am allowed to do.

Besides the oatmeal, he's only tried one other food. We were out at a restaurant a few nights ago and I had ordered a baked sweet potato. Grey was busy checking out our plates and trying to figure out what to grab for first, so I took some of my potato and put it on a bread plate for him. Oh. My. God. To say he loved it would be the understatement of the year. He kept trying to lay his face down in it on the plate. We had to keep pulling his head back up and spooning it into his mouth. The second we slowed down to reload the spoon he was faceplanted in the plate again. So I guess he likes sweet potatoes. I'm curious to see if we'll get the same reaction when we try broccoli.

Just ignore the horrible looks on his face. He really does like it. Oh, and you can obviously disregard Daddy's beer soda too.

 NOTE: In an effort to extract your minds from the gutter, I need to explain that my parents are NOT chain restaurant people. My dad's favorite Texas breakfast place is a run down wooden shed building with a corrugated tin roof out in the middle of nowhere. So the morning after having Greyden, I called them to find out what they were doing and when they were heading up to the hospital. Imagine my disgust surprise when Mom told me that they were just finishing up at the "International House of Pleasure" and would be at the hospital shortly. I don't remember if I responded before or after vomiting in my mouth and beginning to cry. I mean, I'm stuck in the hospital while my parents are staying at MY house and frequenting the International House of Pleasure. Eww, eww, eww. (Although now that I'm thinking about it, if that was actually the case being in the hospital and not at home with them would have been a blessing.) Come to find out, the International House of Pleasure is what they decided to rename the International House of Pancakes. Apparently they liked IHOP's breakfasts. (Biiiiig sighs of relief.)