The Trixie Update

I gradually stopped warming up Trixie’s bottle many months ago. Pretty soon she came to expect her milk straight out of the fridge. Now that it’s summertime here, she likes the ice-cold bottle even more. So much so that sometimes she won’t drink if it warms up too much. (We occasionally have to add ice cubes to her bottle.) How about the rest of you? How do you serve it up? Go vote in the latest Trixie poll (to your left under ‘Latest TTU Comments’.)

 
include_once "/home/trixie3/public_html/poll/booth.php";
$php_poll->set_template_set(”plain”);
$php_poll->set_max_bar_length(125);
$php_poll->set_max_bar_height(10);
echo $php_poll->poll_process(15);
?>

 

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Looking over our monthly budget I realize that we are spending like $200 a month on Cheerios. This is insane. I’ve been trying to keep track of her baby food expenses, and like a fool I was only looking at baby food jars. It is only now that I realize how wrong, how terribly wrong, that approach was.

I’m not entirely sure how it’s happening. I mean, it’s true that I end up eating them like bar nuts. There’s always an open box sitting around somewhere. It’s hard not to - especially when they aren’t stale.

Jennifer too has renewed her interest in the toasted oat cereal. She’s taken to eating it like a kid on Saturday mornings. We also both sometimes decide that Cheerios is perfectly acceptable for dinner - especially when Trixie has not been cooperating, and it’s sooo much work to get to the store. (Unless of course, it’s just a quick trip to pick up more Cheerios.)

But Trixie, naturally, accounts for most of the volume. By “accounts for” I certainly don’t mean “positively ingests.” Even when we think she’s eating a lot we can end up surprised. For example, Jennifer was changing her diaper last week. She unbuttoned Trixie’s outfit and Cheerios spilled out like a slot machine. We thought Trixie was feeding herself - she was actually carefully dropping each piece of cereal down the front of her shirt for safe-keeping.

I can really only blame myself for being surprised. In retrospect, the 56 empty boxes that have accumulated in the recycling pile over the last 2 months should have tipped us off. As well as the motor fleet of Cheerios’ “Salute to Richard Petty” Hot Wheels cars, included in specially marked boxes (I’m guessing this promotion must only be in the southeast. Hell, maybe even only NC. Can anyone confirm this?), that I trip over about 3 times an hour. This is in addition to the regular crunching sound our floor now makes.

Unfortunately, I don’t really see any way out. I find myself buying Cheerios all the time. I feel naked if I don’t have a box in my hand. If I notice that we are down to only 5 boxes, I start to get nervous. When people talk about the hidden costs of having a baby, this must be what they mean.

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We’ve been feeding Trixie solids for 2 months now. As readers know, we started her on the ever-present Rice Cereal. It’s become strangely familiar and comfortable since that first awkward encounter. I’m so used to the smell (and taste) now that it’s hard to remember how much it offended during those early days. Now Rice Cereal is added to just about everything she eats.

We then moved on to baby food. I still think it’s funny that it’s actually labeled “baby food”, i.e. food for babies. This is such an elegant idea. It makes me wish for jars of “adult food” for those days when I’m not sure what I’m hungry for. Trixie has plowed through 35 various jars of Squash, Sweet Potatoes, Peas, Carrots, Green Beans, Pears, Peaches and Bananas, introduced in that order. At about 45¢ a jar, this makes her food costs an extremely reasonable $7.87 a month.

On the heels of the baby food, we introduced a few miscellaneous items. She has been eating Cheerios for about a month now, and we began yogurt when she started her antibiotic.

Of all the foods, the Cheerios are the most interesting. Prior to Trixie, I only regarded cereal by the bowl-full. However, when you dole it out on a piece-by-piece basis, you become aware of immense variation among the individual pieces. There are giant puffy Cheerios, hard shriveled ones, flattened ones and thin ones.

(The giant puffy ones are the best.)

We started by quartering the Cheerios because we were so terrified of her choking. This lead to half-Cheerios and eventually we ventured to give her an entire one. Now she attempts to feed herself by the fistful. This is pretty funny because she has enough coordination to bury the Cheerio in her little fist, but not enough to guarantee that when she shoves her fist in her mouth the Cheerio will be left behind. This leads to sticky, soggy Cheerios stuck everywhere.

To Trixie’s extreme excitement, I had been throwing a handful down on the floor (picture feeding ducks at the park.) After a few minutes, I check her progress. And to my excitement, they would be all gone — until she crawls off and I see that the Cheerios are stuck all over her feet and butt. I estimate less than 10% actually end up in her mouth. Now I’ve gone back to rationing them out one at a time.

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Only a taste test can tell for sure. Trixie’s third food is the most visually compelling so far. It also has quite a peculiar viscosity: sort of frothy but also gloppy and slimy. Shoveling the green, mucky paste into her gaping mouth is hilarious. The fact that she loves it and leans forward with an open mouth is even better.

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In a word, carrots. We are feeding her food twice a day now. A frustrating and humorous proposition that is logistically equivalent to trying to tie your shoe with just one hand. You actually need about five: one to hold the spoon, a couple to keep Trixie’s hands from ‘helping’ with the spoon, another to keep her from suddenly jerking forward or twisting around and one more in waiting to try to catch some of the mush she squishes out of her mouth that then rolls right off the bib. I’m sure we’ll get better at it, but for the time being feeding Trixie is much messier, though not as disgusting, than most of her diaper accidents.

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Trixie has now had her first food: Butternut Squash. I realize we previously awarded Rice Cereal this distinction, but after careful consideration it really is more of an adhesive than a grain, and we are retracting the honor. She seems to like the taste ok, and we’re excited about having a different colored mess to wipe up. Now we just wait to see if there is any adverse reaction.

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There is actually no winner here. Paper mâché and rice cereal are completely interchangeable. Rice cereal is disgusting and much better suited for piñatas than the human digestive system. Paper mâché can also be mixed with breast milk but, unlike rice cereal, is nontoxic. Further confusing the issue is that Trixie’s face is so covered with rice cereal when we’re done feeding her that adding a few strips of newspaper would make a mask. Nonetheless, Trixie is eating like there’s no tomorrow so we figure we can advance to the next stage. We’re going to start on real baby food (in the jar) tomorrow or Wednesday.

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The distinction of first food goes to “rice cereal” — a questionable accolade in my opinion because it looks like mica and smells like fish food. But if people want to call it food, then I guess I’ll go along. Trixie was very interested in seeing how much we would shovel in her mouth before she tried to poke it all back out with her tongue. The main lesson for today? It’s time to get a lot more bibs.

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