Culinary Kid

Tallis now has 14 teeth, three of them molars, with another molar about to start breaking through his gums. He handles teething impressively well, only needing Tylenol on occasion and even then just because he acts a little extra touchy. He must have a high tolerance for discomfort. A molar cutting through sensitive gums is no laughing matter!

Those teeth do a lot of work at our house! Overall, I've had little to complain about in Tallis’ eating habits, unless it’s my own inconsistencies in how he’s fed. He’s starting to lose his adventurous attitude toward food and is leaning more toward the tried and true, which gets frustrating at times, and veggies are always a struggle. We have had some success during the summer with corn on the cob, though!





Even if he’s shy around veggies, I’m glad he doesn’t have much of a like for candies or other sweets, and much prefers fruit when he has the choice. Sometimes, though, he surprises us. For instance, I made some chocolate chip cookies with extra dark chocolate a few weeks ago, that Courtney and I found to be almost inedible due to the powerful cocoa taste, but he thought they were heavenly! (All this was quite true when I wrote this entry in November, but he's starting to like sweets more and more - oh no! he takes after his mom!)





He’s also quite adept with utensils, using a fork and spoon with surprising skill, but often reverting to his hands. He still needs practice with chopsticks.



He’s lately picked up impressive cup-drinking skills, but because he dumps it out when he decides he’s done, he still gets a sippy cup most of the time. The other day he thought he’s show off his drinking skills with tomato soup, left over from a lunch of dipped toasted cheese sandwiches. Not only did he end up with a soup mustache, but a beard and chest “hair” as well!







(That booster chair he’s in is a lifesaver, by the way. We don’t have the floor space for a big high chair, and his hook-on-the-table high chair we’ve used until now is incompatible with the apartment’s table. So after weeks of holding Tallis at meal time, having his high chair hooked to the coffee table in the living room, or having him stand at the table on an adult chair – none too safely – he finally has a “big kid” chair to eat at the table with. Whew! Best $22 I’ve spent in a long time.)

Sample menu? Today for lunch, Tallis fed himself macaroni and cheese, applesauce, avocado wedges, chicken nuggets, milk, and a graham cracker later as a pre-nap snack. Not too bad. (Once again, I wrote this in November, and he's become a bit more picky lately and in the last week hasn't had much of an appetite - I think it's that next molar bugging him!)