Through the eons humans have always had to contend with how to feed their children. Every parent has advice they love to offer, and advice they’re tired of hearing about what, when and how to feed their children. Jer-bear and I are lucky to have heard about “baby-led weaning” from friends, but it could also be appropriately called “probably the way people fed their children before someone invented blenders.” With this method you let your baby feed themself, skipping the mush and puree stage and directly giving them appropriate solids as soon as they can sit up independently. There are many benefits: economic and ecological since no buying single-used packaged pouches or expensive jars of mush that your baby may or may not eat; developmental, since every meal turns into a learning experience since the baby has to figure out how to pick it up, manage the texture and how to chew it; and mental, since one of the most fruitless efforts known to mankind is trying to spoon-feed a baby whose interest is not piqued whatsoever by nondescript mush, and also you don’t have to spend precious time and energy creating a whole different menu for your child, since basically your child will be eating what you’re eating.
But one of its drawbacks is the mess. Each meal leaves behind a unique landscape forged from a steady rain of food. At first our kitchen floor looked like the aftermath of a food fight of nuclear proportions, littered with carcasses of breakfast lunch and dinner. Once Boo Boo started walking any food we were not able to pick up from the floor was tracked across the apartment. Grains of oatmeal and kasha hitched rides on his onesies to the changing table, where at the end of each day one could gather enough crumbs to have a midnight snack of muesli.
Sometimes the post-meal mess looks like the product of some kind of multi-media art project. In fact, with a smudge of bright orange sweet potato here, some finger-painted yogurt and avocado, or a strategically placed sugar packets and lobster claws, the mess can look like the result of some kind of performance piece.
No doubt it is sometimes frustrating, but I also find it beautiful because it is part of an extremely significant learning process and now we have a toddler who is all too happy to help himself to a well-rounded meal. Just tonight he was munching away at raw shredded cabbage that we used as a taco topping (he enjoyed the taco, too). Even better, we get to enjoy our meals without chasing his clenched mouth with a loaded spoon.
Progress is sometimes messy and always beautiful.
Please Don't Lick the Taxi 
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