Milk mustache

Chris and I have been fairly conservative about what we feed Ada. Despite the fact that she took to her first foods immediately and enthusiastically, we have held back on adding too many new things too quickly. (Oh yeah, that was going to be a neutral statement, nice job there NLgirl.) Lots of people feed their kids all kinds of things early, and that's fine for them, but we were being slow. Until today.

I blame my friends. Our east coast like-parents-but-without-the-emotional-baggage-of-parents friends were in town Sunday. (How great of them to make a side trip to see us in Portland, when their main trip is to LA for a conference. Plus they brought gifts, and not all of them were for Ada! And they took us to dinner and were generally fun and entertaining to be around. They are the best non-parents a gal could ever hope for.) Fran was saying that she fed her (now grown with three children) daughter an Awful Awful when the child was 8 weeks old. She survived, right? Better even, the daughter is now a tenured professor at a prestigious east coast university with a good women's basketball team.

The awful-awful was on my mind later in the day when Ada and I met up with Ellen and Monkey-boy for a walk to the park. All day I'd been craving sugar, but I wasn't sure what I wanted. Maybe I was just thirsty. No matter. We were in the park around quarter to five when Ellen says, "Let's get ice cream cones before dinner!" Who am I say no? Especially to Ellen, who is much more health-conscious than I am. When she wants to feed her toddler ice cream before dinner, I pretty much have to go along. Plus, I wasn't worried about Ada, who hasn't had cow's milk (other than yogurt, which she hated). I knew I wasn't going to give my 9 month old ice cream, much less right before I walked her home for dinner and the bath-bed routine.

Yeah. Well, I wasn't going to give her ice cream. But apparently that rice cracker I offered her, when compared to the beautiful, beautiful ice cream Ellen, Monkey-boy and I had in our hands, it just didn't measure up. Thinking the girl was getting fidgety because she was tired, I picked her up. Oops. She went right for my cone. Once she got it in range, she dove for it, spreading chocolate all over her face in a wonderfully (and stereotypically) infantile way. I pulled the cone away, but having gotten a taste of the good stuff, Ada screamed in horror at the loss. Luckily, there was some vanilla on the table. It was Monkey-boy's, but he'd tired of it. Which begs the question, what kind of kid signs "all done" half-way through a scoop of ice cream? Apparently not mine. She sucked down several spoonfuls of Monkey-boy's abandoned treat.

Before Ada could scale the counter and jump into the ice cream tubs, I prepared to flee the shop. But first I swore Ellen to secrecy. Except she had already snapped a photo of the girl scarfing some vanilla, so I knew I could not count on this being "our little secret." I knew J would see the picture, and since I don't currently have anything with which to blackmail him, I doubted whether I could keep things under wraps. Knowing this, I came home and immediately told Chris about my transgression. He was elated (no doubt thinking of all the ice cream he'll be able to eat and blame on Ada forcing him into...)

Well, Ada's baby book certainly will be complete. First smile, first roll, first elicit ice cream before dinner. All in all, a banner day for Ada and mommy.