The hunter stalks the prey

I guess one of the most exciting movies I have seen is 'The ghost and the darkness'.  It is about two lions turning into maneaters and which attack rail road workers in Africa.  The suspense of the movie lies in the scenes where the lions stalk the workers.  The attack scenes per se are just ok...bit gory, but not as graphic as many of the current movies...but who cares!  It is so much more interesting to see the terror in the peoples' eyes when they know the lions are 'out there'.  The movie shows a very realistic scenario about the hunter's instinct these big cats have.  These cats are relentless; once they have fixed their eye on their prey, they stalk it, and strike when the time is right...and they will run their prey down if they need to.

Where am I going with this?  I am referring to a scenario that has become quite common in our household: feeding time!!!  Gone are the days when feeding just meant for the mother to pick up the baby and breastfeed her...gone are the days when dad could just take the bottle and fed the baby...and gone are the days when milk was enough for the baby!!!

Jenny doctor told us that we should introduce her to solid food now, and that we may feed her anything that we eat, without the spices/sweetness, of course.  We are lucky in one aspect: our baby seems to be a foodie, too.  She seems to eat everything we give her.  And that's a blessing.  She is not yet finicky that she won't eat this or would only eat that and so on.  

However, with the new-found freedom of crawling coupled with growing expertise in how to use her mouth, feet and arms, feeding time has become a 'messy affair'.  If we lay the baby down for feeding, she either kicks with her feet, or she turns onto her stomach, or she clenches her mouth shut and turns her head sideways and so on.  If it is liquids we feed her, half the spoon runs down her face and if it solids we give, most of it will be left encrusted on her cheeks. My wife literally has to use different tactics to feed Jennifer every single time....and sometimes even walk on her knees behind the crawling baby in order to feed her.  Needless to say, the poor dear is tired beyond words by the time Jenny has had her stomach filled.  And it is not that the baby isn't hungry...it's just that she is too playful.  I guess that is why people have invented the feeding chair for babies, where the kid is strapped into the chair, unable to move.  It's on my shopping list!!!

This is the situation in our household at least 6 to 8 times every day, depending how often the baby needs to be fed.  It seems that our schedule revolves around Baby sleeping...baby cleaning...baby feeding...baby playing...baby sleeping...etc.  But as I have mentioned before: one look at her chubby little face filled with a beaming smile makes it all worth it. :)