Finger Food

"breaded" papaya

Now that Tali has mastered Puffs, she wants all of her food to be finger food. Whenever there is a crumb of food on her tray, she tries to pick it up and put it in her mouth. (I give her a few Puffs as "dessert" after each meal so that she can satisfy the urge and practice hand-mouth contact.) This leads me to believe that she is ready for real finger foods. So after she finished her dinner last night I cut up some banana and put it on her tray. She was definitely excited about the banana but it didn't go as well as I thought it would for three reasons: 1. the pieces were too big and she gagged on them at times; 2. due to its texture, the banana was hard to pick up; 3. she misses her mouth, a lot. Today I solved the first two problems. After Tali's 3:00 meal, I cut up some papaya. I made the pieces much smaller and "breaded" them by coating them in her rice cereal. Success! Tali didn't choke once and she could easily pick up the pieces of food. There were still quite a few pieces of papaya that landed on the seat of her high chair or the floor, but that will just come with practice. At least she's having a good time!