The One Where the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon

I managed to use 4 bowls and 5 spoons for tonight!

This never happens and it was only now as I was clearing away, that I noticed the sheer amount of plastic cutlery and crockery consumed!

I had "encouraged the child to sit in the highchair as I cleared away" as per Gina Ford. Now I don't normally subscribe to Gina's mantra's but this does seem sense and she makes it sound so idyllic doesn't she? In reality bits of food are getting chucked on the floor, the boy is screaming to get out and a plastic flower that is supposed to stick to the tray table but clearly doesn't, goes whistling past my ear at alarming speed and velocity!

So the trouble tonight lay with my trying to introduce lumps!

The boy is 7 and a half months now and I feel I should be getting to grips with stage 2 but he's more of a smoothly does it kind of a guy.

I'd given him some of my Bolognese with little pasta stars mixed with a cube of pureed peas and some cheese. The Bolognese and pasta had been previously whizzed but it still had more texture than the lads gag reflex would allow. After 4 or 5 spoonfuls the spoon was pushed away and most of my hard work was being spat out.

I'll pass it through a sieve I thought! Genius! That'll smooth it out!

So one bowl of food was passed to another via a sieve. Still no good! That's two bowls and two spoons down.

So I opened a jar of sweet squash and chicken.

I decanted some into a third bowl using yet another spoon, thinking he won't want it all, he's had some of the Bolognese (well the bits he didn't spit back). This was received with much more success so I went back to the kitchen and spooned a bit more out into the bowl. Obviously he'd used spoon number three so incase we didn't want it all and I could save some for tomorrow I used spoon number four.

But he did want it all so spoon number four wasn't technically needed.

After all that bowl number four and spoon number five were for dessert, Mummy's special apple and pear with cinnamon and vanilla which thankfully always goes down, and stays down, a treat.

So tell me, should I have persevered with the first dinner or would you have done what I did and give him something you know he likes, so he's full and happy and more likely to sleep through?

Does it simply come down to that old choice, like it? or lump it?