Independence, or We Should Have Seen This Coming

Christopher went through a little phase a while back where he wanted to do everything for himself. I think it was tied to learning the language for it, but just about anytime we tried to do anything for him, he'd protest with either "No, I do!" or "No, Chris do!" This is typical of toddlers from what I hear and has faded now that the novelty of the words have worn off.

His little brother, on the other hand, has taken this theme to it's logical extreme. Where Chris couldn't (or just wouldn't, by the end) hold his own bottle until he was a year old or so, Alex has been feeding himself for months now. He obviously can't mix up a bottle of formula, but hand him a bottle and put him down on a blanket and he'll happily drink it by himself. Now that he can crawl he'll even come back to a bottle later and pick it up himself.

Now, as he is learning to eat solid food (He now has at least 5 teeth) we're seeing hi independent steak assert itself again. For a few weeks, he was happy to let us feed him while he played with a spoon. A few days back, though, he started screaming at every meal. This was not long after he had forsworn the jarred stuff, and he was still having some trouble chewing (even soft pasta). After a few meals of trying different kind of foods and lots of screaming from Alex, we just piled a couple things in front of him and let him choose. He loved it.

We soon figured out that he'd eat anything if you stuck it to a spoon or fork and left the utensil on the table in his reach.