Let the Fun Begin!

As I expected, I did indeed try feeding Patrick some rice cereal today. Every night we give Patrick a vitamin bottle of about 4-5 ounces. That is typically plenty for him, but last night he finished those five ounces and proceeded to eat a normal meal from me too. I figured if his appetite was truly that insatiable, he needed more than I could offer him. Sure enough, he was ready for solids. When I tried this morning, at first he just licked at the spoon with curiosity, uncertain of what this weird textured stuff was that I was putting in his mouth. Then he started licking at the cereal that had fallen around his mouth between spoonfuls. He was more and more eager each time I brought the spoon to his mouth. Finally toward the end, he started to figure out how to get the spoon in his mouth and eat it that way. It's still not smooth, obviously, but practice makes perfect. I think he's looking forward to trying again. He has seemed more satisfied and happy since. But feeding solids is definitely a time-consuming process and anything but neat. At least I expected that much. Here's an "after" picture of Patrick. I just couldn't resist.
In other news, yesterday continued to be a frustrating day even after the clawing incident I blogged about. He fussed most of the day (now that I think about it, he was probably hungry most of that time). When he wasn't fussing, he was sleeping. That means when bedtime came, he was anything but tired. It was awful making him stay in his room and cry until he fell asleep. What finally worked to help console him was some calm classical music playing in the background. Thank you, Mom, for suggesting that trick all that time ago. I'm glad I finally got a chance to try it and that it worked.