Saturday, October 22, 2011

Sometimes the hardest thing to do when you're writing a blog or raising a child is to come up with new ideas. As a writer, I find that the well occasionally runs dry. But it has never panicked me as much as it did when raising my babies. Sometimes the littlest things would become so big in my mind.

My first daughter Hilary was disinterested in solid foods. (This was not the first thing I stressed over.) She was nine months old, still nursing, and couldn't care less about trying anything else. I didn't bother her with that cardboard tasting food that they used to call pablum, or with rice cereal. Instead, I made small tasty meals that were baby sized and safe from all possible choking hazards. I tried feeding her in the high chair, in my lap, in my husbands lap and everywhere that a baby almost into toddler hood would consider interesting. But there was nothing I could do. And then one day, at around nine and a half months, she just started to eat. She wanted regular food like my husband and I were eating, but very mashed up. And it was really no big deal, after all. For a couple of days I felt like sending out proclamations to the newspapers, my own personal tidings of great joy. After a few more days, it came to seem like no big deal.

That's the way it is almost all the time, I realized. You sweat about so many things and then they just happen anyway. The lesson for me was to trust nature and my own child's instincts. Our next child, Michelle, didn't get teeth until she was around a year old. She started eating solids around seven months and had no more problems with it than any other baby. She loved to eat and enjoyed a lot of texture, so things couldn't be too mushy for her.

My third daughter Mari is the one that I really need to hang my head in shame over, regarding her introduction to solid foods. It happened shortly before she was six months old. Based on my other children's experiences, I wasn't worrying about introducing solids at all. I was out for dinner with my sisters, and Mari was parked in a high chair at my side. She had really good muscle control and had been sitting up for a while. We'd passed her around the table and everybody had held her, but it was time for us to eat. The toys I gave her weren't making her happy, so I took a piece of garlic bread from the basket and gave it to her to suck on. (My head hangs in shame as I write) It was crazy, because she could have choked, and really, all that butter couldn't have been good for her. But she was really happy, her face all shiny, wearing big gummy smile. We ate in peace. She started eating solids legitimately, just a few weeks later. Would I make that choice again? Absolutely not. And yet, it all seems to have worked out.

Things have a way of doing that, so there's no point making a big deal out of small problems. Because there's lots of parenting stress ahead and its no use making stuff up, unnecessarily. Try to enjoy the ride, and don't look over your shoulder too much at the mistakes you've made. There's more ahead of you, I promise. Happy parenting.