Food

I can not believe the changes this little girl is making after just the week at home.  Our little girl has some food "issues" for lack of a better word.  When we met her in China we assumed that she would be eating solid foods, I was prepared for a bit delayed but not where she was.  We were told that she was only eating formula/rice cereal bottles and they weren't lying.  The first day she was with us we could not get her to eat a thing. That night in the middle of the night she sucked down an 8oz bottle in about 30 seconds.  I am sure it was made all wrong but she must have been starving.  One problem was the nanny's told us to mix the formula and cereal 50/50 and make it thick but they did not tell us how to mix formula.  Tip for future adoptive parents: Take a formula scoop, the Chinese formula did not have one and the directions were in (yep, you guessed it) CHINESE.  We had the brand right we called and asked but we did not have a clue on the mixture or the temperature.

So after much research and talking to the nannies, again, we finally figured out what she liked, sort of.  I think she finally gave in, these crazy white people just aren't going to get it and if she was going to survive and not starve she might as well eat what they gave her, as long as it was 3000 degrees F and mostly rice cereal.  The nanny told us to make it like lava and she was right in both temperature and thickness.  As we went along we discovered it was more the temperature that she liked and the bottles got a lot thinner in consistency.  

We tried baby foods and puffs in China and we discovered our little one hated anything with any texture in her mouth.  There was no way we were getting even a Cheerio in this girl's mouth.  In fact one night at dinner Jim got a piece of rice on her tongue and she spent a good 5 minutes trying to get that grain spit out, which she eventually did.  On the train from Changsha to Guangzhou, we had McDonald's and she looked at my fries with a little interest and I tried again.  She went as far as sucking the salt off of one before throwing it to the ground.  I got in trouble for that one, from our guide, I was excited that she put something into her mouth, apparently fries are not healthy.  I wasn't going to start feeding her exclusively french fries but for a 16 month old she should be at least curious about finger foods and it gave me some hope that we would not be waking up 3 times a night to give her a bottle for the rest of her life.  Yes, at that point I was, that tired, and I was seriously considering how I was going to pack "lava" bottles in her lunch box for the first day of school.  After we got to Guangzhou, I was able to get some more rest and everything was much more comfortable, we decided once we got home and could try hot foods, things would go better.  I still had guarded hopes.

The day after we got home, I heated up some sweet potatoes (lava hot) and guess what our girl tried a couple bites.  I added some rice cereal at dinner and we have been off and rolling ever since!  I was unsure of how much she should be eating and so I looked it up online, first time mom here.  I was shocked to find out that she was at about a 4-6 month range, she just turned 16 months.  She had no idea what to do with her tongue in those first few feedings and most the food just came right back out.  But I think I have a pro now, she gobbles that food down like no other.  She still loves her bottle and that is just fine with me, I love bottle time but I also love that she can sleep through the night because she is not starving for something substantial.

We got a regular highchair yesterday and it is only a matter of time before she starts eating more than just baby food.  Right now she has a definite preference for bananas and oatmeal, but don't try and be sneaking and get a chunk of real banana in there, she is no fool she will find that chunk and spit it right out or gag which ever come first.  She eve ate a good portion of my raspberry yogurt with seeds yesterday, but I tried vanilla today and she was not a fan.  I absolutely adore learning her likes and dislikes, I am going to push her to try new things but believe me this spicy girl can push right back if she needs to.

These pictures were taken in her first couple of sweet potato days and I will have to get video of how she gobbles down the food now, now that Flip has been dumped from China we have the video space.