Now miss Scarlett, you come on and eat juss a little honey!

All of a sudden babygirl has taken to not liking her solid foods. In the beginning she would tolerate it and appease us, but she has absolutely regressed lately, preferring to just grab her little bottle on her own and eat from that at her own pace and on her own time. Whether we try and feed her when she's starving or just barely hungry, try rice vs. oatmeal, carrots or squash, she throws a fit as soon as the bib goes on... and I swear she even knows what kind of bib - if it's the slicky, plasticy bibs that's when the Gone With the Wind type drama begins...

This morning, before I barely even touched her mouth with the spoon, her little nose wrinkled up, the hands flew up in protest and she actually started this little gagging sound as if she was choking even though absolutely nothing had gone in her mouth yet....of course, this was enough to make me double check since any remote little gag or cough strikes fear in me like nothing else can. After confirming there wasn't so much as a drop of milk left for her to choke on, I decide I'm sure she is doing this on purpose, that she somehow knows this fake choking will make me stop trying to feed her. Refusing to be mentally defeated by a 7 month old, I go back to trying again and immediately her little hands start rubbing her fists across her eyes and forehead with a type of despair equal only to Scarlett O'Hara's dramatic reaction as Rhett Butler is leaving her to go off to war..

As I do finally manage to get a spoonful successfully in her mouth (instead of all over her face, fists, and in her hair) she makes a face as if I've just wronged her beyond any and all reasonable mother/daughter expectations, it's a face that I swear said word for word,

"How could you do this to me? The pain, the anguish, the betrayal..."

After this, she sits in her little chair for a good 15 seconds in what I can only describe as shocked stillness until finally erupting with volcano-like projectile spitting that goes all over me, the chair her clothes and even Brogan, a perfectly innocent bystander.

Finally, after at least three rounds of this fake choking/flailing arms and projectile spitting, I give in to the queen and stop the apparent torture I am inflicting. Given this flare for the dramatic she is developing, I'm sure one day we'll be watching her portray Miss Scarlett with ease in a high school play and, right now, as far as this solid food business is concerned... frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn....



PALTSKKJ