Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Bad Parenting: Level One


Xander is trying a new food every couple of days. He likes almost everything so far. When he first tastes something, he makes an unpleasant face, but I've learned that it's really a reaction to an unfamiliar taste. He will soon demand more of the new food, sometimes to the point of belligerence. When we feed him bananas, we scrape the bowl clean in an attempt to appease him, but he still protests when they are gone, fussing and banging his high chair tray with his sippy cup.

Tuesday's new food was avocados. Xander made his face when I gave them to him, but then he made the same “mmm,mmmm” sound he makes for bananas. He even smiled a little. So I kept feeding him. I did notice that he wasn't really opening his mouth, but I still put a few spoonfuls in when I got the opportunity. Then, suddenly, he made an awful face, gagged, and puked what looked like green milk onto his bib. He had only swallowed a little of the avocados, and was holding the rest in his mouth.

I cleaned him up and apologized for pushing avocados on him, and he blithely went into his swing.

At dinner, I decided to feed him some sweet potatoes, since he hadn't really ingested any of the avocados. I strapped him into his high chair, put his bib on, and he started crying. Then he started screaming. I have never seen him so upset on an un-nap-related issue. I had to take him out of the high chair, hold him in my lap, and coax him to try a bite of sweet potatoes, which he likes. I felt so bad. I traumatized my child with avocados! We will have work to convince him that supper time isn't really so bad.

I guess this is the first in a long line of parenting mistakes I will make. At least he won't remember this one.

*Full disclosure: this is not my first parenting mistake. Why, last Friday, we took him to a bar. We thought it was a Mexican restaurant! He slept through the entire experience.

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