Thursday, May 6, 2010

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.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

CRAP is she ever cute! And she has a great name, too :D

Riot Kitty said...

What a great little grin!

G. B. Miller said...

Ahhhhhh....memories of days gone by.

Man do I miss those.

Not. :D

I agree with R.K., a cute little grin and I might add, has the beginnings (or is it the middles) of a charming personality.

Anonymous said...

I STILL think you should have started with the fondue.....

I mean Cheerios? Eh.

Kind of boring.

And we know Meg isn't into boring. She doesn't even like "baby" toys...

Come on. Let's step it up.

Amanda @ It's Blogworthy said...

Ok, that's just hilarious. I'll have to remember that when my baby gets here. :)

Jennifer said...

Aren't dogs perfect vacuums! ...and yes, she is adorable:)

Kelly said...

Dogs plus baby equals good. If you forget to feed the dog, the baby can. If you forget to feed the baby some kibble never killed a kid. Self feeding fondue with a baby afro, equals not friends. Would be like glue. Good call.

Amanda said...

Is she wearing the tell-tale remnants of the Mitchell family delicacy known as beef Rice-A-Roni?!?! No wonder the smile is HUGE!!

When I called this morning to talk to Dad, he obviously had been interrupted at giving her a bottle. Your dear daughter, in her best mildly peeved, incredulous tone said, "All done?" It was very dear.

LL Cool Joe said...

What a cute smile! Yeah I'm glad you mentioned the "slightly shaking" bit. Otherwise you'd have everyone telling you how you should never shake a child!

How about singing "Shake a tail feather" next time and get Meg to wiggle her bottom. :D

Ellen said...

We always shook Cash to "Come on Baby, Let's Do the Twist"! He loved that. Try it!