It's Not What You Think

We have started letting Meg feed herself. Not all the time, and not with food like soup, or fondue, but at least once a day. Every meal starts with us laying out little tidbits like Cheerios, peas, carrots, pasta, and meat chunks; and ends with us picking up many of the same tidbits off the floor, the high chair, and out of her hair. We then give said tidbits to the dog, who paces hungrily once she sees Meg sit in the high chair, and who eats every bit of food that falls anywhere close to her mouth.

At first, cleaning up Meg was kind of a chore. Some food would be left behind and found later; sometimes in her diaper at changing, sometimes in the padding of the high chair the next time we fed her. Of course, that was when we though cleaning up the baby was a one person job. Now we know it's about teamwork. Now we know about the stand and shake.

It's simple, really. One person takes off the tray, and holds it at waist level. The other person undoes the straps, and holds the baby up over the tray, shaking slightly, and brushing, to get the food off. It's a good system. Sometimes we even try to make it fun for Meg by dancing her around and making up songs. Like tonight, we were singing "shake, shake, shake; shake your baby." She thought it was so funny!

What? It was funny... Hey, at least we don't use clean her up with the "no wire hanger" technique.