Ready with the Grapes

Right before bed, baby had fifteen or twenty grape halves. In between doing the dishes, I cleaned my hands of soap, pulled a grape from the bunch, bit it in two, and gave half to my beloved child (and ate the other half). She made her I-love-grapes-sound, walked out of the kitchen to enjoy mom’s company for eight or ten seconds, and then came back for more. She didn’t mind when I had been distracted by the work I was doing. She just made the more-grapes-now sound, an unmistakable, high-pitched hum and grunt blended in her tiny vocal cords. As I say, she didn’t mind. But when I was waiting with a half grape in my hand, before she turned the corner from the living room, and proffered it to her the moment she saw me, she liked it immensely, smiling and shining her eyes bright.

"Mmmmmm"

At just a few days shy of fourteen months, baby has grown suddenly fonder of solid food. She wants bites of mommy and daddy’s food, whatever it is, as well as a supply of her own finger food on her high-chair tray. Not all the time, but often, she moans with satisfaction when she takes a bite of food she especially enjoys. “Mmmmmm,” she announced today, chewing a piece of egg and smiling at the same time. Eventually, we will be expected to curb this somewhat less-than-polite behavior, but don’t count on my doing so anytime soon.