Sludge Attempt

I mean rice cereal.

We got the OK yesterday at Henry's 4 month appointment to try to start solids. The doctor recommended
starting with rice cereal, and once he has that down, switching to fruits, then veggies, then meats.

Little did I know that I would be much more excited to start rice cereal than Henry would be.

First of all, there are 900 varieties of rice cereal. How are you supposed to know what kind to use? I suppose it's similar to formula where you just have to pick, but I found this ridiculously overwhelming. I, of course, picked the rice cereal with the prettiest packaging. Earth's Best Organic Whole Grain Rice Cereal sounded the most promising. It also boasts pictures of babies farming in cloth diapers. Obviously the promise of Henry being able to farm after eating rice cereal sold me immediately. The package also promises "No GEI." I had no idea what the hec GEI is, but if there wasn't any in Henry's rice cereal, that was good enough for me.

Curiousity got the best of me and I googled GEI. After coming across GEI consultants, and various other non-baby related results, I googled "no GEI." This yeilded results of parents wondering the same thing I was wondering. What is GEI? Finally I came across this very granola answer:

"No GEI is a kind of password, it seems, for those in the know. It means No Genetically Modified Ingredients. This is important for families who have histories of food allergies, because the advent of GEI in foods have, some scientists are arguing, contributed or perhaps even caused the outrageously high rate of food allergies we've seen in this country in the last decade or so."

So as usual, another baby product promising to turn my child into some kind of superhuman.

Anyways, I came home and poured some formula into the flaky rice cereal and made a liquidy paste. I began to prepare Henry for his first real food by talking in a high pitched voice and making him smile a bunch. Luckily, I had thought to put a bib on him, because little did I know how messy this would become. See below:

Moral of this long rice cereal story, is that Henry seemed confused and unamused by rice cereal. Most of it ended up on his bib rather than in his belly, but we will keep trying until we have a solids eating baby.