I'm like, "strip 'em to a diaper and let him feed himself if he wants."

Feed 'em nekkid and hose 'em off.

Cash and Connie. I had two kids in diapers (well, training pants for one) that I fed that way and then would let them into the front yard to play with the hose. We lived in Yuma, Arizona so it was virtually a year round activity. I have pictures for proof (and come to think of it, the son was nekkid.)

Feeding naked leads to pee in the food.

"strip 'em to a diaper and let him feed himself if he wants."

Yep. Witness my little cousin Aidan a couple years ago: [link]

Feeding naked leads to pee in the food.

Why do I know that's the voice of experience?

Witness my little cousin Aidan a couple years ago

BWAH! I'm thankful I purchased one of those plastic mats to put under the high chair.

I had two kids in diapers (well, training pants for one) that I fed that way and then would let them into the front yard to play with the hose.

Definitely a summer thing here. But yeah. I'm going to do that.

Feeding naked leads to pee in the food.

I used to say we ought to feed 'em naked in an empty tub and just fill it up after, though. Instead, I'd give them their messiest meals (the ones I was letting them feed themselves) right before bath time.

Susan, some babies nurse exclusively for a year. One of me s-i-l's is very nervous about choking. My niece was probably on the same track as Annabel. She is gorgeous, and brilliant, and funny, and all good things, at age four.

Cheerios are a great finger food. Arrowroot cookies are great, because they can't choke. Once you're at a point where you and your doctor agree Annabel should be eating finger food, the real secret is small, irregularly shaped pieces.

to use a fork for something other than stabbing his sister

Given who his sister is, is this really a proper goal? :)

VW, that's sweet, the doggie pillows.

Yay Cashmere (or, your family) for the restitution-and-not-jail.

This tattoo has come in handy in exactly the situations Hubby mentioned. It's worked so well that he added his Social Security number.

Bwhahahahaha! That's hysterical.

Infectious disease is becoming a huge problem because we've basically set up a system to incubate things like TB and then release it back into the community

Sure, not to mention AIDS.

A church in my hometown had a pastor named Jimmy Jones, born well before the name became notorious.

My high school principal was named Jim Jones. He went by "Mike" (which I assume was his middle name, but whatever).

(Mine *was* a fairly deep knife wound that left an icky scar, but palm wounds tend to hurt like a motherfucker.)

Ooh, me and my "I fell down the stairs and got stigmata" palms agree. Plus, six weeks later the big spot scars are still pink.

Nobody ever expects the firebombing of an insurance company.

They really should actually...

Bwhahahah!!

Happy birthday ita! Hope it's been good. If not, then kick the crap out of it.

I thought, and probably even said here, that I was going to make my own baby food because it was better for her and tasted more like adult food and was therefore better for her palate.

HA!

I'm too busy. And while I'm not a super-paranoid mom WRT choking, it's kinda nice to buy stuff where I know if it were a major choking hazard for a baby Annabel's age, Gerber would've gotten their ass sued long ago. So we have their fruit puffs and biter biscuits and so on, not to mention all kinds of pureed baby food.

She's had little bits on non-baby food. We gave her a tiny bit of bread DH made in the bread machine last night. She looked perturbed, then swallowed and asked for more. And if I hadn't cut my hand, I'd have made pumpkin bread and gave her the leftover pumpkin puree. But most of our food is unsuitable for her in one way or another, and I'm too lazy busy to cook her a special meal when Gerber makes all these nice jars of ready-to-serve.

Parenting=doing all the things you said you'd never do, and laughing at your idealistic plans.