First off – several people have asked about Mike’s ear infection. He seems to be doing a lot better! His appetite is better than ever. He is as happy as he has ever been. And he is not having any trouble laying down or sleeping. That is all good news! Of course, his appetite has always been good. He’s always been happy. And it has been a rare occasion indeed when he has had trouble sleeping. But nonetheless – we feel that he is finally on the mend! But we are still keeping our fingers crossed until after the follow-up visit with the pediatrician…
A while back, we mentioned that we have been trying to introduce Mike to solid foods. We figured he was about ready. He’s at the right age, the pediatrician said to “go for it”, and he intently studies us when we put food in our mouths. So we gave it a shot.
We’ve tried a wild conglomeration of things. Puffs. Mum-mum’s. Biter biscuits. Mashed potatoes. We even tried mashed sweet potatoes since sweet potatoes are his favorite. Applesauce with chunks of apples. And the list goes on (and on and on and on…).
Every food met the same fate. If it was finger food, we wouldn’t put it in his mouth – even after watching us do it. I find this ironic since he crawls around to every corner of the room looking for specs of dirt to put in his mouth. And if we put it in there for him (or put it on a spoon for him) he quickly spit it back out and looked at us like we were trying to poison him. And the score on who has eaten the most puffs? Mom – 675. Dad – 523. Mike – 0.
Mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes met the same fate. A little dab on the spoon was met with a “what are you doing to me” quickly followed by a long, juicy, blowing raspberry (which I have recently discovered is more properly called an “unvoiced linguolabial trill”!).
We knew that we only had to find the right food and Mike would be happy. And it has turned in to quite an adventure – Mike now gets a small bite of nearly everything on our plate (all met with the same results).
Until this past weekend…
We were sitting at our Puleo’s Grill (for all of you folks in Knoxville – if you haven’t been then shame on you!) enjoying our Sunday afternoon lunch. We decided to splurge a little and ordered an appetizer of fried green tomatoes. Did he like the tomatoes? Of course not…
But the tomatoes also come with something extra. Stone ground cheese grits with Tasso gravy. Yep – that’s gravy made with Cajun Tasso ham. And yep – it’s a little on the spicy side.
So we loaded up a chunk of grits and gravy on a spoon and held it up to Mike. He looked at it. Then looked at us. Then opened his mouth. And we stuck it in!
He chewed a little (already a positive sign since it wasn’t an immediate spit-out). Then he chewed a little more. Then we swallowed! Then he opened his mouth for more!!!
Incredible. Of all of the food we’ve tried – it turns out that the first “solid” food that Mike eats willing is from our neighbor’s restaurant. And it’s grits. With a Cajun gravy.
Our son really is from the south!
And what did our neighbors think of this? Well – lets just say that I’m pretty sure that Mike will get free grits and Tasso gravy whenever he wants it…
Hey mom – how come you never gave me these grits before? Dontcha know I’m a southern boy?
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