Banana Cannon

Dean has started eating "real" food the last few weeks. It is hilarious. We were letting him taste various things for a few months, just to open up his palate to a variety of flavors. He immediately decided he loved ALL food and has been dive-bombing for our plates ever since. He has now had sweet potatoes, prunes, peas, carrots, rice cereal, apple juice, bananas...um, I think that's it. He loved everything but peas. Good taste in my opinion. I have decided that I want to make his food, not feed him canned baby food. Call me organic, call me cheap. I got the book, Super Baby Food, which was recommended by everyone I knew. It is FULL of info. Fairly overwhelming, but it's really getting me excited about this new stage. I got a small food processor and a slew of fruits and veggies to ship up. Tomorrow we try avocado.
I think that the best part about all of this is the experience of feeding him. He's getting better, but still pushes some of the food out of his mouth. He is constantly wanting to feed himself, which doesn't work too well. Actually, I'm not sure that I'm any better at feeding him, than he is at feeding himself. I have starting stripping him down to just his diaper and a bib before feedings to minimize the amount of laundry we rack up each day. He ends up with whatever he's eating in his hair, up his nose, across the forehead, down the arms, on the legs, and all over the high chair. He's so happy doing it all that I don't care how much mess he makes. Plus, we have 2 dogs that are happy to clean up any messes that come into their territory (the floor).
Dean doesn't have any teeth yet, but has the drool of a teething baby. He's learned to do all kinds of tricks with this constant stream of drool. Add the food into it and we have a banana goo cannon! Once it gets warm enough, I'm going to move our eating area out on the porch and just hose it down every few days. Actually, once it gets warm enough I hope to move all of our daily gear outside. I'm ready to be out with the birds and the sun again! Of course, I also have to get Dean a big hat and kiddie tarp to protect his pale, redhead skin. Poor guy. We're still hopeful that he'll get my skin, but it's unlikely. He'll be the little boy at the pool swimming in a hat, long sleeves and pants. Cute, eh?