When it became time to work solid food into the Worm’s diet, I was pretty excited.  Introducing fruits and veggies has been a lot of fun.  Although he makes some pretty twisted faces during feeding time, he manages to swallow everything down without incident…unless, he sneezes.  Let’s knock on wood a little here, since Worm’s never completely turned down anything yet.  He’s pretty keen on food and will even occasionally munch on grass in the backyard.

When Gavin hit the 6 month mark, we gave real food the green light.  Bananas were the first to be sacrificed by the Kalorik Baby Gourmet food processor.  Then avocados, apples, etc.  At 7 months old, we got frisky with exotic fruit like mangos and papaya.  I don’t know why, but I was very interested in seeing if Worm liked these fruits.  Ok, I do know why.  These fruits grow in my mother country, Trinidad, and I must get Gavin to eat these and love them, dammit.  (He’s got West Indian blood in him!  And I want to know how much…)

I had to be present for the very first mango feeding.  Mango is my all-time favorite fruit.  So, this was like a paternity test for us.  I was so anxious, I had to empty my bladder before the big moment to avoid any incident.

There definitely was a sourpuss face with first bite of mango puree.  With bated breath, I wished for a more positive response on the second spoonful.  Gavin swished the mutilated mango morsel around for a second, then swallowed the mouthful down and opened his mouth for more (like one of those starving baby birds on the nature channel!)  Success!  (I patted him on the back with ” You really ARE my son!  There’s no need for us to get Maury Povich involved.”)  He figured out how delicious mangos were, and powered through the rest of the puree.

It looks like I’m going to have to learn to share the fruit of my labor with the fruit of Steph’s labor…or start hiding my mangos in the underwear drawer!

If you didn’t already know, there’s one mango that I’ve yet to try out….the Tebow mango!

I love mangos! Just like daddy!