We have entered the realm of finger foods.  Well, we are at least tossing a few things out there on the baby’s tray to see what he will do with them.  And he is definitely doing something….not a whole lot of eating because, you see, it is much harder than we remember to learn how to pick up a small thing like a cheerio and place it in one’s mouth. Baby C is quite adept at manuevering a small item of food all around his tray with his forefinger.  He can use the forefinger of both hands and pin the pea or cheerio between them.  Lifting the item, however, is a challenge. Sometimes, after he has slobbered enough, he can touch the cheerio with a gooey hand and it actually sticks to the finger.  This is a surprising stroke of luck to him: "Look mama, this one’s magnetic!" He usually ends up grabbing the cheerio by pinching it between his thumb and the side of his fist but then the difficulty comes in delivering the food into the mouth.  This pretty much requires the mouth to make room for the entire fist, lest the cheerio be released before entry and dropped down under the tray to be rendered unreachable.  A few make it in and come back out.  A very few end up digested and in their proper resting place inside of baby C.  Many end up on the floor and, after a whistle and a scurry of doggy paws, inside of Rolen.  Rolen is rooting for a slow learning curve.

I have gotten it into my head that the name "Cheerio" should be spoken in a British accent: "Cheery-O!"  Is this something British people say or did I make this up? I said "gee whiz" the other day and laughed at myself…I was remembering that scene from Notting Hill where Hugh Grant’s character is attempting to climb a fence and says "oopsie-daisy" which Julia Robert’s character thinks is hilarious. He denies he says it and then stumbles again and oopsie-daisy’s again. funny scene.