Ready, set, eat

Six minutes. That's the time it takes Trace to polish off a small container of sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, pears or applesauce. I can barely keep the spoon moving fast enough to keep his temper from flaring.

He liked the rice cereal from the get go, but with each new solid he samples, he grows hungrier, faster and more demanding. I sometimes wonder where he puts it. His little stomach can't be that big, can it? Despite my wonder, though, he puts it away each afternoon allowing me not to take my attention off his mouth, his food and the spoon. It's a six-minute dash between the three.

At his four-month check-up, I confessed to the pediatrician he had already been introduced to cereal. "How much should I let him have?," I asked her. We finish his quarter cup or so, and he sits there looking at me as if to say, "Where's the rest, lady?" I was apprehensive to give him much more for fear of what, I'm not sure, but hesitant none the less.

"Give him whatever amount he wants," was her response. The only negative side effect we'll see, she said, is constipation. Okay, I guess if he wants to constipate himself, we'll deal with that next. For now, he gets a little bit more each morning until we reach a point that he can't put it away (note: hasn't happened yet).

In the meantime, today we stepped it up a notch to three meals of solids each day hoping to satisfy his appetite. Cereal and bananas for breakfast, pears for lunch and green beans for a senior citizens' dinner. My guess is he'll keep up the pace, the only question that remains is if my spoon can keep up.