Eating Meals on His Own!

This week seems to have been full with milestones. Generating an interest in brushing his own teeth every morning and night, spitting, having full conversations utilizing difficult words (he has a fairly extensive vocabulary!) but in the last couple of days he has expressed interest in actually FEEDING himself. Ever since he had issues with iron and in efforts to get his iron levels back up it meant us not only cutting the milk back but me also being incredibly vigilant with his meals, I had been feeding him (as opposed to letting him do it). I'd forgo my meals to make sure he was fed and full, and would only eat until he was done. I had previously allowed him to feed himself but he was so incredibly messy and it took more effort to make sure he ate while also cleaning up his messes....so essentially, I began to feed him again.

Over the last month he had been climbing into his booster seat whenever Ken announces that dinner is ready. And he'll tell me to come eat because dinner is ready!

On Wednesday night, both Ken and I got home late, and we were making Kouneli Stifado, or a Greek rabbit tomato stew inspired by our travels (we had traveled to Santorini and Mykonos with good friends a few years ago) but it required it at least 1 hour cook time. Kasen was hungry and was pretty much eating everything in sight, a banana to an apple to pretzels and asking for some frozen pops. Luckily we had some leftover rice and beans and his favorite Mom's Homemade Chicken Soup (that's really what it's called haha) from Whole Foods. I fed that to him and he happily ate several spoonfuls while playing. Ken then announced that the stew was done, and Ken put together a small bowl of the orzo pasta with the stew - I wasn't sure if Kasen would like it, so I spooned a little on to his little spoon and asked him if he wanted to try Daddy's yummy stew. He ate it, his eyes lit up, and he said," Mmmm, yummy!" At that he climbed into his booster and proceeded to finish the entire bowl with a big spoon.

I did think it was a fluke though. I didn't think it would happen again.

So last night, we were having minced pork with mushrooms and tofu, and for veggies roasted brussel sprouts in bacon fat and spinach sauteed in butter.

He started to use his own spoon (from Oxo Tot), again. It seemed difficult for him to spoon the food in the bowl so I spread it out on one of his IKEA plastic plates. Success! He not only scooped equal amounts of meat, veggies, and rice (you and I both know kids generally pinpoint and zero in on what they like to eat as opposed to what they are SUPPOSED to eat), but he also tapped the spoon on the side of the plate to get rid of any excess sauce. And shoved it in his mouth. Wait. Did he spit any of it out? Where's the mound of food I usually see on the table? It's not there? He actually ATE it? WHAT? We both looked at him in surprise. And where on earth did he learn to do that spoon tapping thing!?

And he proceeded to do it. Again, and again until the plate was clean. WOAH! Though I somewhat have youtube to thank for the distraction, and while we can all argue about how horrible it is to expose our kids to this stuff it has kept us all sane, and at the end of the day he only watches about an hour to an hour half of it each day anyway.

I'm still speechless. Wowza.