Gerber Green

Kiley is eating real food now not just milk. Well, "real food" is a bit of a stretch. She's eating baby food and baby food is only "real food" in the sense that astronaut food is real food. If it can be squeezed out of a tube in the zero gravity of space it is not what I would consider "real food". In the same vein, if it can be shot from a squirt gun it ain't carrots. It might be the same color as carrots, it might smell like carrots (it don't), it might even taste like carrots but that orange mush in the baby food jar is not carrots. It is merely mimicking carrots, impersonating carrots, reminiscent of carrots, even derived from carrots but that's about as far as its relation to real carrots goes. The same is true for all the other baby food flavors. Spinach, green beans, peas, pears, the list goes on: they re all the same "mush" in different colors. Oh, I'm sure they are nutritious enough, scientifically formulated and all that, but there is more to eating than nutrition.

That said; Kiley loves baby food – all of it. Which is amazing to me. I can understand the so-called fruit, peaches and pears, they're sweet, but the rest are all vegetables. And they are mostly the vegetables that I hated as a kid – spinach, peas, broccoli, squash for God's sake; she loves them all, asparagus. She can't get enough. I put her in her chair and as soon as I start putting her bib on she goes crazy.  She is absolutely frantic for the colored mush. It's like she hasn't eaten in a month. And talk about a messy process! I scoop up a spoonful of "whatever" and shovel it into her gaping maul only to have half of it squirt back out all over her mouth and chin.  I then scrape it off her face with the spoon and shove it back in, again half of it squirts back out. And this continues until there is not enough on her face to bother scraping off and its time for spoonful number two.

By the end of this ordeal, affectionately known as "lunch time", she has multi-colored mush all over everything. Her mouth, her chin, her hands and arms they are all smeared with "lunch" but that doesn't faze her a bit. She doesn't care that she is covered with slime from head to foot. In fact she objects strenuously when I attempt to clean it off. Apparently, when your four months old, having your face wiped with a damp cloth is more objectionable than having carrots up your nose. Go figure. Still, it is good that she is a good eater. This is a critical time in her physical development and she needs all the nutrients she can get to facilitate the rapid growth of her body and brain. There is plenty of time for her to develop her own individual likes and dislikes but for now it is good that she is not "picky" about food. Especially since her food is so repulsive to grown-ups. Have you ever tasted it? I'm sure every mother has. You can't help it if merely from curiosity. So it must be obvious to anyone that, despite what the manufacturer states, the orange stuff is not carrots it's something else. I don't know what it is but it's not carrots and it shouldn't be called carrots. It should be called, I don't know, Gerber Orange maybe. And the green stuff shouldn't be called peas or spinach or broccoli it should be called Gerber Green. In fact I imagine there must be a secret facility out in the desert where this stuff is mass produced under tight security, from God knows what, then shipped out to all of the unsuspecting babies of the world. Actually, that makes sense. It explains everything. That stuff's not carrots. It's people. It's peeeeeeoplllllllllle!

Nan

This post linked to the GRAND Social.