Hungry Bird

Have you ever seen a bird diving into a swarm of bugs, snapping its beak at things left and right and progressively eating its fill? That, pretty much, was Celeste this afternoon.

Although she would never admit it, she was a bit tired after only having a 30-minute nap in the car/in her bucket on the living room floor after we got home (Evelin took Celeste with her to work for a lunch-time meeting). However, after our short stroll around the neighborhood and Celeste helping me change a headlight bulb in the Hyundai, Celeste decided that her stomach was more important than a nap.

She wolfed down the cube of apple I mixed with oatmeal, and then vacuumed up a cube of sweet potato — I think she's starting to get the sign we're using (SWEET + POTATO) for that. Throughout this, she was opening her mouth really wide (sometimes without having swallowed everything she took in on the last bite) before flinging herself mouth first at the spoon. It was both funny and frightening. This was all interspersed with little squeals and squawks from her that really sounded like she was trying to boss me around. "Feed me more!" "Feed me more, now!"

After the sweet potato was gone, I got introduce a new food — banana. On Sunday, we picked up some organic bananas at Whole Foods, and they are getting to be ripe. So I mashed up about 11∕2 inches of banana and let her try it. The results were mixed. She only ate about four bites, but from the first she wasn't too sure about it. It could be the texture was too off (I mashed it with a fork whereas her other food is nicely ground up by the KitchenAid) or maybe since it was offered last she wasn't hungry enough to try get excited about something different. Oh well, there are at least three bananas left, so we'll see what she thinks tomorrow.

After eating, she spent about 30 minutes in the crib complaining/playing until she finally fell asleep and I could sneak out of her room. We're approaching the 30 minute mark, so I expect to hear some wakeup noises all too soon ...

[UPDATE: Just as I go to post (and Blogger is acting balky), the wailing starts. It was like the nighttime inconsolable crying, and it proved easier to have her wake and stay up even if she is still tired than to soothe her back to sleep — when she's crying like that she wants to see her mother much more than me ...]