So, Maybe I'm a Tad Self-Involved

Right. So it's possible that the reason she wasn't eating wasn't necessarily about me so much as about her ears being infected. That's right. Both ears. Really infected.

I have no further comment.

I Want to Quit Feeding Her

It's too hard. I had a big old cry about it this morning and decided it's time to quit. We can go back to food when she's ready to make it herself. Surely she can survive on that nice formula until she's what, 6? 7?

This morning it was a big 'no thank-you' to banana and yogurt which is sometimes eaten. Yesterday she ate 3 meals of milupa and apricots which I believe she was supposed to give up at 8 months? Or maybe never have had to begin with (I don't even read the ingredients because it's too disheartening to know what chemicals I am already putting in her because the plain brown rice cereal just grossed me out).

There are 2 parts to my quitting-ness over this. One is the hassle. Frankly, I am tired of boiling 8 noodles and throwing out 7 of them over the next 2 days. Steaming carrots and sweet potatoes that she mostly throws on the floor. Throwing out cans of beans. I know I should be more resourceful and eat the shit she doesn't but it is so freaking unappetizing to eat anything you've seen undigested in a diaper that I may be off bananas, beans and carrots forever. I read the awesome cook books from Katie and Megan and know that I could be feeding her lamb curry and moussaka by now and think of all the flavours she'll never know because I didn't introduce them before now. To say nothing of the eating disorder she'll have sensing my anxiety over food.

The other part is the failure part. Feeding this girl has been a bit of a failure-filled area from the beginning and it seems like a kind of essential thing to get right. I think I could have lived with not getting her exposed to Mandarin and Japanese early enough for her to learn the language on her own but fucking up her food life seems... serious. It's worsened by the confused faces of my mother and mother-in-law who know the way that would have worked and try to be kind with my bowls of black beans but sneak in warmed up rice cereal whenever they're alone with her. Well, that and french fries. But I hate jarred veggies. HATE jarred meat. I don't WANT to give her that shit. I want her to eat what I'm giving her and make my way right. I want this to work. Damn. You know it's the same problem over and over again, isn't it? Fuck. Well, nothing a little crying won't fix.

Ugh. It is so difficult to be kind. Kind to myself, kind to others. I watch other parents and look for the ways they're screwing up so I won't feel so bad, and then I look at me and find all the ways I'm screwing up and feel even worse. It's a bad strategy. Do you suppose I'll figure it out anytime soon? I doubt it.

Looks like today is a low day. Good thing it's sunny. At least we'll get to play outside. And maybe have more fucking rice cereal for lunch.

My Feet Don't Touch

A cloudy Saturday morning is as good a time for a cry as any, isn't it? I just watched my daughter fall asleep and it made me teary. Go figure. I guess every once in a while I feel up close just how dear she is. Dear, like expensive. Like worth a lot. Like treasured.

Oh, that was a good cry. I just deleted a paragraph of thought on that because it was just too private and vulnerable, and some of this just has to be mine. But it good to every once in a while realize my feet don't touch the bottom of this deep ocean of love that we all swim in*. The moments when we remember we can float in it are so sweet...

My girl is of course, lovely. This week she started clapping. She thinks it is VERY funny to clap and then blow kisses. Somehow they are tied together in her mind because she rarely does one without the other. And she does neither on command. They seem to be spontaneously triggered by what, I don't know. But suddenly it will cross her mind, "you know, I can clap - can I still do it? oh yeah - man, this is funny stuff," and then she is clapping and laughing away. Such a nut. She has also started pointing to show things she wants, mostly at mealtimes. We sign to her in the hopes that sooner or later she'll get a bit more specific, but since I only know the sign for "food" generically and "water", really I don't know how helpful that's going to be.

Also, after weeks of sleeping through the night, she has started to wake up ravenous in the middle of the night. She had given up on rice cereal lately so we believe that she's just not getting as full during the day as she used to and she's probably also having a growth spurt. So today I am going to be shoveling calories into her. Big smears of cream cheese on the bagel this morning, another attempt at rice cereal for lunch and then noodles and turkey meatballs for dinner. We'll see how it works. Katie sent a great cookbook of yum baby meals so we're trying some of those out too. Here's hoping she gets full again though. I REALLY like sleeping all night.

That is Talia at 10 months. Love it. Love it, love it, love it.


*This may be one of my favourite things I've ever written. Huh.