It's amazing to me that regardless of how crappy I feel, Ben always has a way of making me feel better. Yes....sometimes he is difficult and cranky and that leads to me feeling crappy but he always has a way of salvaging the day by doing something that either makes me crack up or at least be able to take a step back and get some perspective. It has been a really hard week.....very trying and exhausting and I'm glad it's almost done. Yesterday was the hardest day of an already difficult week. I was totally stressed out, Ben was simply not happy doing anything yesterday and demanded all the attention I could muster up and the dog was irritating me to no end. I went on a pleasant walk with a friend which was a wonderful break from the chaos but the day on the whole was not a good one.
I was trying to feed Ben solids in the late afternoon. I've been super frustrated with this lately as well. Yes he does better with the more manageable spoons but he really only eats rice cereal plain and maybe prunes on a good day. He won't even eat the bananas that he devoured so rapidly a few months ago. I've tried just about every fruit and vegetable that baby food companies make. I've tried several brands of commercial food as well as homemade. I've tried baby yogurt. NOTHING. He makes faces and gags and then looks at me like a wounded puppy. So I'd given up and was only giving him rice cereal and occasionally baby oatmeal. I tried several fruit/veggie combos yesterday and he was doing his blech/gag routine so I was about to throw in the towel. I left him in his highchair and decided to eat myself while he was contentedly chewing on his sippy cup. I pulled out a carton of Trader Joe's Butternut Squash soup (you all know exactly where this is going). I heated some on the stove, threw in some fresh spinach and veggies and had quite the tasty lunch. Ben kept staring at me eating and was actually moving his mouth like he was chewing while I was eating. I looked at the ingredients on the carton- butternut squash puree, water, garlic powder, onion, etc. I figured "what the heck......worth a shot." I cooled a bit and put it on the baby spoon and shoved it in his bird like open mouth. LOVED IT. He started bouncing excitedly in his high chair squealing. I gave him more and got the same reaction. So Ben ate a small bowl of butternut squash soup.
This made my day and put a smile on my face. I again realized an important life application lesson from my son- no matter how hard you try, you can't change a person....you just have to adapt to how they function and learn to appreciate them for who they are. Maybe this lesson is a bit profound considering I was dealing with pureed fruits and vegetables, but there is a grain of truth- Ben has his own personality and is going to be who God has created him to be regardless of how hard I try and get him to do it my way. Lesson of the week that is applicable to parenting and my life in general right now. Thank you Benjamin.
Oh.....I do have to say that if he keeps up this diet of rice and butternut squash soup for the rest of his life, he'll never get rid of these legs :)
No comments:
Post a Comment