What Goes In, Must Come Out

After my inital foray into feeding my daughter solid foods, by introducing her to rice cereal (See "What A Mess"), I had eventually worked up enough "experience points" as a baby feeder to move on to some more traditional baby food, as opposed to the various glops that most babies first try (rice, oatmeal, and then barley cereals.)

Now, there are several theories out there about which foods to start a baby on, after the various cereals.

One theory is to start them out on fruits and sweet vegetables, like carrots or sweet potatoes, because the high sugar content will make them taste better to a baby's developing palate, resulting in them having a positive experience with the foods and being more willing to learn to eat.

Another theory is to start your baby on the more bitter green vegetables, like peas and green beans, assuming that if you start a baby on sweet foods they will be less likely to wlecome the bitterness of the green foods when being introduced to them later on when really want them to eat their vegetables.

And, since solid foods are meant as practice for now (since most babies will continue to get the bulk of their nutrients from mother's milk or formula until they are one year old) there is no need to teach the baby to "like" the foods yet, so there is no need to try fruits first, under the basis that they will like them better.

After some deliberation, and a consult with our pediatrician, we decideed to start our daughter on green veggies, and transistion into sweeter foods later. Although, I'm not sure how a baby could find any form of baby food to be appetizing.

So, when the big night came I set up the video camera and sat down next to my wife to record our daughter's first impression of a classic first baby food: green beans. Our daughter readily ate all of the veggies (I would imagine anything is better than rice mush) and the meal was a success.

A few days later I learned a new lesson in parenthood: green food = green poop.

It was an almost Newtonian principle which I hadn't considered. Opening my daughter up to new foods meant that she could "eat the rainbow", which, nutritionally speaking, is a great thing. I just never considered the fact that that meant she would also "deposit the rainbow" in her diapers a few days later.

Every few days we tried a new food, and every few days her poop was a shocking new color. My personal favorite was the "deposit" that she left after a meal of carrots.

To make matters worse, once you witness something like bright orange baby poop, you really start to notice the similarities in the look and consistency of baby food, both before and after consumption. There isn't a lot of difference between the two.

In one instance of feeding my daughter some freshly pureed peas (which smell so very delicious when warm) she pursed her lips and squeezed the contents of her mouth back out at me, and I couldn't help but picture the same scene going on behind her a few days from then.

And, the color of a baby's post-solid food poop isn't the only new thing going on in their diaper.

I'll give you hint as to what the other change is: Have you ever forgotten to run the garbage disposal in your sink after pushing fruits or vegetables down the drain, and then walked into your kitchen a day or two later to the smell of rotting food?

Imagine that smell, but about ten times more potent.

Changing my daughter's diapers, regardless of how messy, used to be one of my favorite pastimes with her, and I used to actually enjoy doing it (I know, I'm a freak) because it gave us a chance to play together and bond. Now, it's a mad dash to tear off her diaper, drop it in the Diaper Genie, and clean off any "remnants" before the smell starts to make my eyes burn!

Our decision to dress her as a skunk for Halloween was definitely well-grounded.

Stinky colorful diapers aside, I'm glad that my daughter is finally making strides toward being able to eat what I eat. (They grow up so fast! *sniff*) Besides, eventually she'll be potty trained and it will eventually be a non-issue.

They say the average baby will go through 10,000 diapers by the time they are fully potty trained. After six months, we've probably burnt through about 1,500 diapers, and maybe only 300 of those have been "dirty" ones, so out of the remaining 8,500 diapers to go I should only have to wear a gas mask for another 1,700 or so more diapers.

Bring 'em on.