Saving Time on the Front End

One of the biggest things I'm learning as a parent is the value of preventive maintenance. Not on my car, but everywhere. In particular, cleaning up messes.

Yesterday, I fed our son prunes, peas, and applesauce for lunch. Not only did it get all over him, but on his bib and onto the high chair try. It did not help that, just as I fed him a spoonful of prunes, he reared his little head back and, "Sneeze!" This sent the food all over the tray and his bib. I was happy that it didn't get on me.

After the feeding ended, I wiped his mouth, took of his bib, got him out of the chair, and went on to the next activity. During his nap, I looked at the tray. It was covered in prunes that had since dried. On the counter was his bib, also covered. I brought them both over to the sink and proceeded to scrub. If I'd only wiped them up immediately after the prune tornado, it would have been easy. Now, I had to spend five good minutes scrubbing. And all of you parents know, five minutes of scrubbing is a long time and could be much better spent.

Now I truly understand Benjamin Franklin's saying, "A stitch, in time, saves nine."

Funny Kid Speak

One of the kids in my playgroup was showing me her room. She pulled out a silk nightgown that used to be her mother's and told me that she slept with it. I asked, "Do you use it as a blanket?" as it was too big for to wear. She replied, "No, I just suck on it." It was really cute. For the rest of the morning, she demonstrated, not letting go of it, but letting it rest securely in her mouth.

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Help! My son is lazy!

Our son has several talents that could probably put him into the top percentile of his class, but there is one thing that I'm starting to worry about.

He doesn't hold his own bottle.

For the past two months, I've been trying to teach him to hold his bottle. While feeding him, I'll actually take his hands and put them on either side of the bottle. While he is beginning to get it when I do that, he still will not take the initiative to pick it up from the start. Furthermore, he hasn't grasped the concept of gravity with respect to liquids in a sealed container; he doesn't understand that he has to tilt the bottom of the bottle up to make the formula come down to the nipple.

Does anyone have suggestions? I know that our son is barely 7 1/2 months old, but we have high expectations. I believe that he can learn, if only I knew how to teach him. Help!