Picky Eater Learns New Words

Yesterday Miss Kyla Rae learned how to say "no."  She uses it in the right context and doesn't say it mean, but sort of sweet...drags on the o at the end, like "nooooo," in her little baby voice; like "Mom, nooo I don't want to eat that, I've got a voice now."  Today she learned how to say "ball."  She was playing with a ball, held it up high to me and her Dad and said "ball."  She doesn't quiet say it as good as no though, she has the ba down, but not so much the l at the end.  Hopefully this is making sense.  It does to me.  :)

We are still struggling with getting Kyla to eat big people foods.  It's a texture thing for her and the fact that she is cutting molars right now doesn't help.  Kyla has been in sort of an in between stage where she is starting to not want to eat babyfood anymore, but then also doesn't want to eat big people food either.  She has to eat, so I (and her babysitter) are forced to struggle to feed her babyfood.  Somehow Kyla accidentally DVRd a portion of a Blues Clues episode that she loves and she will eat for that, so usually every feeding I turn on that episode and she gobbles down.  Kyla also wants to start feeding herself, which is fine with me but the problem is that she doesn't know how to work a spoon!  She doesn't hold it right so most of the babyfood ends up all over her or down her bib/clothes and only a tiny bit gets into her mouth.  It is a little difficult for me to sit back and watch her try to feed herself because I want to help her and show her how to hold the spoon right but she doesn't want me to.  It's also hard to watch her make such a mess of herself, but I guess that's part of learning how to do things.  This girl definitely wants to be independent, which is a blessing given her circumstances.  I gave her banana babyfood and a spoon the other night and just let her go for it.  She mostly treated it like it was a body paint and used the spoon to sort of paint it on her little arm and rub it around.  LOL.  She was a mess by the time I decided that learning time was over.  Kids are not easy, and I have never really been around kids, so I have no clue what I'm doing really, I just try to figure it out a long the way.  Greg was scared to even deal with her after this was over and wasn't sure how to even go about cleaning her up.  He said I am the Mama and that type of stuff is just built into me (his way of getting out of the cleanup).  It really wasn't that bad, took a wet washcloth to her a couple times, rinsed it out and then threw her in the tub!  Tonight Kyla amazingly ate some of a meal I made last night, like a roast chicken spaghetti with a white sauce.  The more bland, the better for her.  Now that I'm a parent I guess I am experiencing some of the troubles my parents went through with me.  I used to fall asleep at the dinner table when I was little because my parents wouldn't let me leave until I had finished my meal.  I decided that instead of eating it I would just fall asleep there and then I wouldn't have to eat it at all.  I also remember putting meat (red meat like steak and pork chops, which I still to this day will hardly eat...definitely no steak and maybe every once in a while pork chops are OK) into my napkin and feeding it to my dog under the table.  HAHA.

Oh!  I guess I didn't describe the picture above.  I was trying to think of a way that Kyla could learn how to use a spoon better, so I decided to give her a tiny bit of chocolate pudding since it's pretty thick and stays on a spoon good.  She did really well at first and liked the chocolate and then decided to ditch the spoon and just get down to business and lick the inside of the cup.  Gotta love kids.