Feeding Miss Gilly: A Memoir of Hardship

You may have heard me bemoan the misery that is feeding Gillian. Here we are, 13 months after she was born, and she could still give a fig about food. Sometimes I start going to dark places in my psyche when I am especially frustrated trying to feed her solids, like daydreaming about forcefeeding her. Interesting what you start thinking about somewhere between the 5th and 100th piece of food that hits the floor. Today, I almost had to go for a walk. Almost. Somehow I found my calm voice and kept the utter irritation off my face to prevent her from learning which buttons to push to illicit a response from me. No one really ever told me the amount of psychology that goes into the seemingly simpler aspects of parenting, like FEEDING.

Today started like any other day. When we went into the kitchen to eat breakfast, I had high hopes (even though G has been hardly eating anything solid the past week of so (unless Goldfish count, which she would eat all day long, if I would let her)). I cut the tiny slit in the top of her yogurt and inserted the straw (because God knows, she won't let a spoon held by me within 100 yards of her mouth), I pulled out the cup of defrosted blueberries from the frozen bag I found at the grocery, hoping to delight her...blueberries are her favorite thing in the whole world, but are sadly out of season as of the past two weeks. So, I paid A LOT for a 1 lb bag of them from the frozen food aisle, all proud that I found her Favorite Thing on Earth AND justified because they would last virually forever because they would stay frozen till eaten, despite the cost. Erg. Ya. And a banana, and some grapes, and some Cheerios. Here's how it went down:

1) Yogurt (organic, delightful, and tasty) smoothie: one suck, then slapped away (mind you, she LOVES Pear...but not today)
2) Blueberries: rejected. Gagged on. Fished out of mouth seconds after entering and thrown on the floor in disgust. OUR LITTLE CONNOISSEUR CAN DISCERN FRESH BLUEBERRIES FROM FROZEN BLUEBERRIES, AND THANKS MOM, BUT THEY ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE TO BEING IN THE SAME UNIVERSE. Anyone around here want an expensive bag of blueberries for cooking?
3) Bananas: a couple token bites to keep me hopeful, but then flailing arm sends them flying in all directions.
4) Grapes: no token bites. Just dropped over the side of the tray one by one.
5) Cheerios: eaten here or there, but mostly thrown around, knocked off by her waving arms, or stashed in her pants*
6) Oatmeal that I cooked hoping she might be really just in the mood for something else to eat, and rolled into bit sized balls: flared nostrils, plucked from lips like it was rat poison. I ate the rest of it for her.
***Throughout: Sippy cup tossed to the floor 5 times. Then it stayed there. She pointed and whined at it until she found something else to throw somewhere else.

I want to give her a good talking to. I try sometimes, but all she does if grab my face and makes some of those Pebbles sounds she makes ("poor mommy, knickers in a twist, you'll be ok", she says to me). In the end she doesn't know what, "Now Gillian, haven't we discussed your propensity for aerial food experiments and decided that these morsels of delight do more good in your stomach than sticking to the tiles?" means. But she does think it is Heee-larious when I get all serious.

So, I gave up. Did she eat more liquid because she didn't have breakfast? Nope. Is the only thing she devoured like she was starving to death all day carbohydrates? (Gold fish and little graham crackers)? Yep. Was dinner any better? NOPE-but it sure was more of a mess. So, everyone known my hangups about her weight with the whole preemie thing, but it's more than that...is she ever going to stop relying so heavily on milk and formula?!? It's so much nicer when we all sit down and actually eat together...

There are few things more depressing and demoralizing that trying to come up with a healthy menu for your baby and then having it completely fail-not only do you not have the satisfaction of knowing that it is at least appreciated a *little* bit, but you also have the pleasure of scrubbing the food off the floor around her high chair after said abysmal failure (and GOD it is hard to think of something interesting to feed her every night). In the end, it is becoming clearer that this mortherhood thing is a truly thankless job. At least she was charitable enough to give me a little love before bed to let me know it's not personal.

*lately, G has been hoarding things behind her when she plays and stuffs food between her diaper and the highchair at meals. Sean came up with a scenario that she is, in fact, stashing food in her diaper to sneak to Tigger and Bunny after I put her to bed. The dialogue he hypothesized was most entertaining, but I am too exhausted to expound upon it here.