Battle of Wills

Emma and I have been locked in a fierce battle of wills for the last two weeks. I'm determined that with her first birthday just around the corner she needs to branch out from formula and baby food-she's just not having it. I've been trying to introduce new foods to her for a while now, but she won't eat anything other than fruit and crackers (goldfish, vanilla wafers, etc). It really has me concerned because I'm pretty sure her doctor is going to tell me take her off the bottle during her one year checkup. She cannot survive on fruit and goldfish!

Well, the battle finally reached a pivotal point on Friday night as we were bumping heads over a Gerber Graduates meal of spaghetti sauce and pasta rings. Every time the spoon got near her mouth she would clamp her lips shut. She would lick the sauce off of her lips afterwards but wouldn't let me get a bite in her mouth. I gave her the spoon and all that resulted was our obese dog got a face full of spaghetti o's.

This goes on for about 15 minutes, with Jeremy watching the whole time. Finally, he senses that I'm about to jump off the nearest cliff and he grabs the spoon and gets her to take a bite on the FIRST TRY! WHAT!? He comes in and has probably only fed her solids a total of 10 times in her entire year of life, and gets her to eat. I was both pissed and relieved. Of course, after she takes the bite he hands the spoon back to me and sits down to watch again. So, I give it a try-and get the clamped lips AGAIN. Then my darling husband stands up, takes the spoon from me, and proceeds to speak to me like you would a 5 year old- "Now, Stephanie. Watch carefully, I'm going to show you how to do it one more time then you're on your own." He is so lucky that Emma's spoon was blunt . . .

I got the hang of it, finished feeding her and the crisis was averted. Once she decided to stop being stubborn and eat she actually enjoyed it. So do our dogs who now camp out under the high chair during every feeding.