She IS My Day...

     We've recently started introducing finger foods to Tessa. At first, all she would do with the little pieces was pick them up and smush them in her hands. She's now figured out that she needs to put the pieces in her mouth and chew them. It's a bit of a process, but she's slowly getting the hang of feeding herself.

     I'm beginning to realize that meal times in our house are about to get much, much longer.

     When we were feeding her strictly purees, she didn't seem to be all that interested in spoon-feeding herself, so one of us would just feed her and most of the time, it would be fairly quick (she loves her food!!). Now that we've added finger foods, we want to make sure that she learns how to feed herself. Sometimes it's frustrating to watch her struggle to pick up the little pieces one. at. a. time and try (sometimes unsuccessfully) to get them into her mouth. Watching her eat often takes a great deal of patience and self-control on my part - all I want to do is just pick up the pieces and put them in her mouth for her and speed the whole process along a bit.

     This morning, as she was trying her hardest to pick up slippery pieces of cooked apple, I sat there watching her and, again, found myself wanting to "help". Then I stopped, wondering what on earth the big hurry was. Why do I feel such a need to rush this? What do I have to get to that's so important? Laundry? Dishes? Facebook??? Time is already flying by way too fast - why on earth would I want to speed through this precious moment and skip over this opportunity to watch my baby learn and grow right before my eyes?

     It reminded me of a blog post I read a while back (and can't remember where I read it now - I apologize to the writer that I can't give you credit) that said something like this: my child is not an interruption to my day - SHE IS MY DAY. I am so blessed to be able to have a year off work to spend with my daughter - SHE is the priority. Yes, the pace of life changes greatly when there's a baby in the picture; I don't always get things done as quickly as I used to (and sometimes things don't get done at all). But I'm so thankful for the way she is slowing me down and forcing me to just sit and watch and enjoy the little moments. I don't want to miss a single one. Everything else can wait.