He's keen

Tiny's been able to sit assisted since he was about three months old or so. He takes a keen interest in the world around him. He's currently 4.5 months old and he's been more and more assertively interested in this food thing that Josh and I keep eating, as opposed to just passively interested as he was before (when Terry suggested we should just give him a tiny bit of apple juice to give him a taste and to which I responded he has the rest of his life to get tastes and now was not the time).

I don't really want to start giving him food til he's about 6 months old so I know his digestive system will at least manage solids but Tiny doesn't seem that interested in waiting. One time while I was at Jared's place, I was drinking a cup of water (as you do) and he tried to grab it. So I said "Want some water?" and offered it to him. He grabbed it with both hands and gummed the rim but didn't drink. I had him on my lap as I sometimes do when having dinner as he doesn't like being all by himself over on the futon when all the action is happening around the dinner table, and he tried to steal my buk choy, gumming the stem of that before I managed to reclaim it. Tonight I had him on my lap while trying to convince him to sleep and looking up stuff related to 3d work so I could get on with trying to solve an eyelid problem, and was drinking a banana smoothie. I let him have a fingertip of that and he tried to grab the glass.

He's been copying our chewing motions and when he sees us eating he makes chewing and swallowing motions. We've started giving him fingertips of things, water, fruit juices (from apples etc), meat juices, cold mash etc, got him a high chair (pretty much just so he can sit with us at meal times at the moment), and he has a cup that someone gave him when he was born. I'm looking to get a bowl and spoon set for him, pretty much so he could play with it while we were eating.

Trying to google "introducing solids" was a bit of a miss as I suspected it would be, a lot of well meaning sites harp on about "start them at 4-6 months" and "they should be eating X meals by the time they're Y months old), the ones that spread the misinformation that they *needed* solids after 6 months coz breast milk didn't contain enough iron for them seriously irked me. After skimming it I thought "screw it" and went back to instinctive mode. I'll just keep giving him fingertips of whatever we're eating and eventually graduate to giving him a small mound of whatever.

Speaking of instincts, what is it with society and people thinking they know what's better for someone else? It's probably a good thing we've got so many advances in medicine and all that but some of these doctors have their heads shoved so far up their own arses it's a wonder they're not inside out. Like one of the mothers on AB found this product called "push pal" which claimed that lying flat on the back is the best position to give birth in (maybe for some people, I was semi-reclined coz it was comfortable and I was too weak to sit up which is what I would have preferred) and they were going on about "when your doctor intructs you to push"...WHAT THE FUCK? I think the woman giving birth knows when to push, not some stupid doctor who thinks they know better than everyone else.

I love my doctor, he's this funky Chinese kung fu instructor type guy. When all the other doctors were on my back about iron and folate supplements when I was pregnant he just told me to keep exercising (but go eas on the kung fu) and eat lots of fresh vegetables and maintain a good diet. And the midwives at Woodside were awesome, they didn't instruct anything, they were just there to help and encourage.

Everyone would be better off trusting their own instincts for the most part (obviously advice etc is a good thing, but no one should tell someone else what to do as though it were the only way of doing something...something along the lines of "I've only ever been able to do it this way" is fine). Stupid society has been hammering into people's heads that they can't think for themselves and have to listen to the "experts" and that this way (whatever that way may be) is the right way and there is no other way and if you go against the mainstream you're obviously stupid and an outcast etc, and then wonder why society is going to hell in a handbasket.

People are stupid.

Anyway. I digress. Instincts. Yes. So I'll keep giving Tiny fingertips of stuff til he starts looking like he wants more than just fingertips, then work up to handfuls or something. Need to get him a bowl and spoon set and preferably not one that's blue and yellow (I have nothing against the Eagles, I barrack for them when they're not playing the Dockers, I just hate that colour combination).

I love being a mother :) I don't know why anyone would be in such a hurry to wean their baby onto solids (I'm going to breastfeed until Tiny decides he doesn't want to breastfeed anymore, so whether that's next month or in 7 years it's cool with me), or "can't wait til they start going to school to get them out from underfoot". I love being with him and watching him grow and develop, it's an awesome feeling. And I still can't believe something as retarded as me helped make something as perfect and wonderful as him. Must come from Josh ;)

That blender is going to come in extremely useful in the coming months. Josh is quite excited at the prospect of making baby food. And I'm starting to have strange domestic urges...if only I could figure out how to back sling without Tiny trying to fall out.

Every day is great in one way or another, some days are harder than others, and time doesn't seem to fly. Though when I do think back, I can't help but think "Yeesh, he's 4 and a half months old already!" I still remember thinking in my seriously sleep deprived newborn days "Yeesh, he's one month old already!"

When he's eighteen I'm sure we'll be thinking "Yesterday we brought you home from the hospital..."

I guess it's always the way :)