We were simply
elated to begin feeding Jonah baby food.
This month, we began something called “stage 2” baby food, which is a
tad different, mostly because it’s the kind of food that you wouldn’t eat at
gunpoint.
The mixtures that
come from “stage 2” baby food sounded like some kind of
high-school-cafeteria-dare where everyone at the table puts the leftovers in
one tray and they pay one guy five bucks—usually named Junior, Bruiser, or
Mitch—to eat it. I always thought it was interesting to note that Junior,
Bruiser, or Mitch would never eat the food straight from cafeteria workers—it’s
just too nasty—but they’ll happily gobble up anything they’d been dared to eat.
(Why don’t girls ever get dared to eat stuff?
I digress).
Anyway, we were not
paying Jonah to eat this food, but he seemed to nosh on this stuff as fast as
we could force it down his neck. I was
shocked to discover that he really didn’t care about the taste of it. As long
as there was plenty, he’d be ok.
There was a major temptation,
though, that I figure is pretty universal:
the temptation to eat this baby food.
Now I’ve heard some people explain to me that some baby food is really
good: the fruit mix, Dutch apple, and
some of the other “fruit-based” food.
From Jonah’s reaction to these strange concoctions, he loved it, which
is the trap.
We used to have a
dog, Annie, who would not only dine on her Gaines Burgers, or whatever we gave
her, she would devour them like they were chocolate-covered or something. One day, in one of my weaker moments, I
thought, “She eats that food with abandon.
I wonder if I, too, would enjoy such canine fare…” Then, my weakness overcame my culinary
standards, and I tried one of the Gaines Burgers. Not one to take small bites, I had half that
thing in my mouth before I realized that Gaines Burgers were, in fact, truly
heinous. I have since vowed never to eat
the food of another species.
Thus, my curiosity
of Jonah’s food had been tempered by my Gaines Burgers experience. When he was gobbling down “puréed turkey with
camel-snot gravy” I could safely assume that I shouldn’t try it out.
Here are some of
Jonah’s favorite things to eat.
Any kind of fruit
food.
Peas
Sweet Potatoes
Eye of Newt
Toys
Shoes
Turkey and Macaroni
Beef and Macaroni
Chicken and
Macaroni
Cheese and Macaroni
Fists of Macaroni
and, of course,
Gaines Burgers.