When the littlest was born it was almost four years to the day since we’d held the middle in our arms at the very same hospital.
You forget an awful lot about babyhood over the course of four years and since the little started solid food two months ago there have been a lot of face-palm moments.
1. The broom is my new best friend. When the big and middle started solid food we had a dog in the house and it wasn’t until after he died 2 years ago that I realized how much human food he actually consumed. To this day I’m amazed he wasn’t morbidly obese with a serious case of chronic diarrhea. I now sweep my kitchen at least twice a day because the geriatric cat and neurotic cat are doing a piss poor job of eating the littles leftovers. Given that he’s affectionately referred to as ‘tank’ I’m shocked that 80% of his food ends up on the floor.
2. One for you, one for me. I’ve spent the last four weeks trying to figure out how to get a spoon past grabby mcgrabbers and then I remembered that giving a baby their own spoon generally means they’ll ignore yours long enough for you to sneak it towards their mouth. That one realization made me feel like I could solve all the worlds problems in an afternoon (with a handful of spoons clutched to my chest).
3. Never underestimate the power of dry toast. When you’re hungry and two children are hungry and the baby is hungry, small pieces of dry toast can buy 10 minutes of breakfast-making sanity. Dry toast is also easier to sweep up than sticky rice puff cereal. And oatmeal.
4. It doesn’t matter if it’s from a jar, organic, home made, home grown, all food, once pureed or mashed, will dry like bloody cement on the high chair / floor / patio door / kitchen counter / kitchen table. Too many minutes spent scraping and cursing have reminded me that irrespective of the chaos around you, always clean the high chair as soon as the baby is done eating.
5. Food and fashion don’t mix. Cute bibs are thin and too small and generally useless. The little wears doubled receiving blankets affixed around his chubby little neck with a clothes pin. By the third child, ‘pretty’ no longer cuts it.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m a messy cook, and sure do miss our dog. He kept it spotless under the edges of the cabinets. Love the blanket/clothespin idea. I’m amazed you got pictures without veggies/cereal/fruit on the camera!
My camera has had a lot of questionable things on it and I imagine it’ll get ‘gooped’ in the near future by this guy
Your pictures are so great! He is so cute
You are hysterically funny! And as you have noticed and pointed out, cats don’t clean up the floor like a dog – cats are much pickier about what they eat – but, don’t take it personally 
I haven’t be blogging for a while, but I am back reading and writing pretty soon. I missed you!
It’s nice to see you again (and thank you)!
I am still shocked at the mess I now clean up after every meal. As it stands I think he’s eating about 10% of what we offer him – the other 90% of course doesn’t stay on his tray for easy clean-up but is all over his clothes, the high chair seat, and the floor.