Joni and Frank‘s lunch story (Joni 1 Frank 0):
Joni likes scrambled eggs.
She will eat them from a spoon or delicately with her hands.
She will also eat toast and flakes of salmon.
For pudding she likes toast dipped in yoghurt, yoghurt by itself and strawberry and apple fruit purée.
Frank does not like scrambled eggs. Frank will spit or claw them out of his mouth if you feed them to him on a spoon or if he feeds himself.
Frank will pretend that he’s eating toast but is really just chewing it til it is soggy and then letting it fall down the sides of his chair.
Frank also does not like flakes of salmon.
He prefers to grind them around his high chair tray with his hand or fling them over the sides.
Frank also does not like his previous favourite chicken and apple.
He likes it neither in pieces nor puréed up like mummy did yesterday and which he gobbled up happily.
Frank likes yoghurt. He likes yoghurt even when it is really puréed chicken and apple covered in yoghurt.
Frank is an idiot.
Frank is up for adoption.
Joni and Frank‘s Dinner story (Joni 2 Frank 0):
Joni is cautious but realises that she still likes flakes of salmon.
She likes to eat them delicately with her hands or sometimes lets mummy feed them to her with her own.
She also likes black olives. She treats them like peas and plops them into her mouth happily.
She also likes pasta in tomato sauce and snatches up the pasta tubes on the tips of her tiny fingers.
She will also happily gobble up puréed chicken and apple left over from lunch time.
For pudding she likes banana chunks and apple and raspberry purée.
Frank is stubborn and still does not like flakes of salmon.
He gives them a cautionary taste and then scrapes them from his tongue.
He likes to scrape his tongue so much that he sometimes makes himself sick all over himself and his tray.
He doesn’t like mummy feeding him and shakes his head from side to side and flails his hands around.
He pretends he likes olives, but really he just puts them in his mouth to suck them then takes them out again.
He likes to play a game of making the bits of olive smaller and smaller until they’re barely there at all, but still he doesn’t swallow them and spits them into his bib.
Frank thought that he liked pasta in sauce, but really he likes to rub the pasta sauce all over his face so he looks like the tango man.
He licks the pieces of pasta then places them carefully back on the tray all the time grinning and giggling.
After 30 minutes of giggling and playing with tiny olive pieces Frank realises that he’s still hungry.
He is indignant that Mummy isn’t feeding him properly!
Frank screams.
Now Frank likes puréed chicken and apple.
But he only likes puréed chicken and apple for eight spoonfuls.
Then Frank no longer likes puréed chicken and apple.
Now Frank likes apple and raspberry purée.
He likes apple and raspberry purée even though it is really puréed chicken and apple covered in apple and raspberry purée.
Frank deserves a good kicking.
Frank will be leaving us tomorrow.
P.s. it wasn’t long after this time that I attended a weaning workshop and realised that (perhaps obviously too other people whose brain hasn’t departed them with the birth of their children) you shouldn’t be giving little babies salty stuff like olives. Frank was devastated by this.