Swabbing the Neck

Although she’s been known to ingest her fair share of playing cards in her day, Wanda has discerning tastes when it comes to real food. She likes her rice cereal done just so and only sometimes. She enjoys fruits and occasionally tolerates vegetables if the moon is in the proper phase.

Wanda begins each meal with her jaw clamped tightly shut. You can press the spoon against the thin line of her lips. Nothing. Na-da. She will not budge. If you happen to squish in a small amount of food, she will savor it thoughtfully and if she finds it a worthy specimen, she will open her mouth and give it entrance into her digestive system.

Wanda likes the taste of food better after it has been spat out 2-3 times. The yummy food goes in and then – SQUERCH – she spits it through an amazingly small opening in her lips with incredible speed and distance. I scoop it up off her bib, the tray, my bib, the wall and stick it back in her mouth. When the food is eventually seasoned to her liking, Wanda humors me by swallowing a bite and we proceed to the next.

I think the truth is, she believes in quality family time around the dinner table. Why rush through a meal when you can spend a nice evening with your peeps, eating and re-eating and re-eating your dinner one. bite. at. a. time?

The hardest part of dinner with Babida Bubbida Boe is swabbing the neck. It’s nearly impossible to find the neck and once you do, you have to pull back so much “skin” to clean it that the grand finale of most meals is a big fat scream fest. And I just have to say in my sweetsiest voice, “But Wanda, I love you too much to let food rot in your neck folds.” Tough love – it’s a choice I make every day of my life.

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8 Responses to Swabbing the Neck

  1. Carrie says:

    Aw, tilt her upside down and have Magoo tickle her after meals…as long as this doesn’t cause any kind of up-chucking – and while he has her preoccupied, get in her neck, while it’s allllll stretched out.

    Worked for me! Sigh. I miss those neck swabbing days of babyhood.

  2. Ahh a seasoned foodie, that Wanda 🙂

  3. grammyelin says:

    Tough Love!!! It’s the best…and neck swabbing on chubby babies is the stuff nightmares are made of. So sorry.

  4. Kork says:

    Well, that’s about the only downside of chubby babies – finding the dirt and gunk in all those folds and rolls…sigh…

    Oh the joys of feeding solids…Captain Chaos was a veritable human garbage disposal – I remember at one meal he ate 4 of those Stage 2 packs from G.erber…4!!!! plus cereal!!!! YIKES! Portents of things to come… and DG still fights me on some things and she’s 2 now…but oh how she digs those fries when we splurge and get fast food.

    We are the only parents I know who have to tell our kids to eat their meat BEFORE they can have more veggies…

    Wanda obviously has stores in excess, so I wouldn’t sweat it too much…she’ll get there, and before you know it, you’ll be wondering if you’ll EVER have money for anything but groceries, because it sure would be nice to buy yourself a new pair of socks, but that $3.50 would be better spent to make sure there’s enough Cheerios in the house. 😀

  5. Our granduaghter is the exact opposite. If it doesn’t move, she will eat it. She has even eaten some things that move, like ladybugs, and attempted to eat a wolf spider. It wouldn’t stay still long enough to be put completely in her mouth. Her momma freaked out when she realized what was going on.

  6. Pam in Utah says:

    Just want to say what a cute picture of Wanda! Love that choice! Looks pretty cleaned up there! You must be doing fine swabbing the deck/neck at least some times! Keep up the good work.

  7. Paige says:

    Oh, the neck rolls! Such fun.

  8. saf4kids says:

    Hilarious! Reminds me why I did NOT love that phase, and after the first baby skipped it altogether, holding out for a functional pincer grip and the kids who fed themselves (or, to be more precise, squished the black beans and rice cakes into their necks rolls, ears, and hair unaided).

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