Carrots and rice and all things nice...

Miss E and Mr A have now spent their first week sampling the delights of solid food. We got off to a slow start - baby rice wasn't greeted with huge enthusiasm, with both babies pretty apathetic about the whole experience. I was not relishing the prospect of continuing with weaning alone on Monday when I added pear to the baby rice. But some monumental metamorphosis had obviously happened overnight because Mr A could not get enough. I literally couldn't get the spoonfuls into his mouth fast enough he was gobbling so heartily. Miss E also seemed to be enjoying it, albeit at a slightly more refined pace than her little (or not so little!) brother.

Oompa Loompa Doompadee Dah

If you're not greedy you will go far

You will live in happiness too

Like the Oompa Loompa doompadee do

We have since also introduced the twins to carrot and sweet potato and they are both still going full steam ahead.

Spot the difference...

One thing I did notice though.... the stuff gets everywhere. And pureed carrot should come with a warning! After Mr A's first portion of carrot I was covered from head to toe in carrot splatters (think I could do with some windscreen wipers on my specs). And boy does it stain. I had two small orange-faced babies smiling at me for the rest of the day. I reckon the Oompa Loompas from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would welcome them into Loompaland with open arms...

Moving onto the hard stuff

This is Mr A (top) and Miss E on their third day of solid food. Well, I say solid food, it's actually far from solid, being just a thicker version of milk in my opinion. We've been trying to get them to swallow baby rice (pureed rice with milk) since Saturday but nothing went down until yesterday. Feeding twins is, for me, the most stressful part of the day - if they're both hungry at the same time you often have to feed one while the other is screaming. I've found Baby Einstein DVDs really useful as a distraction method at feeding time, and I've also learned that generally, Miss E is more happy to wait than Mr A.

The first spoonfuls of baby rice on Saturday were the most anticlimactic event so far in the twins' life as far as I'm concerned! All this build-up, just to spend a few minutes spooning it into their mouths, only for them to immediately spit it back out again. In true diva-style, Miss E had a little gag at the first mouthful, but that was the dramatic highlight of the whole episode.

It was the same story on Sunday - I don't think anything was swallowed at all. So I was not feeling very enthusiastic about tackling it again yesterday, this time on my own. I changed tactics slightly to make life easier for myself and rather than transferring them into their new highchairs for their solid food, I just stayed in our little snug upstairs with them in their bouncy chairs. Mr A was screaming for food so I gave him some of his bottle and then whipped out the baby rice. Amazingly the first spoonful I gave him didn't reappear! Or the second, or the third, and by the time he was reaching out for the spoon he'd finished the bowl and I had to rush downstairs to make some more. Miss E is taking things slower, but even she managed to swallow at least one spoonful.

It's amazing the sense of exhilaration and achievement that just a few spoonfuls of sloppy baby food could make me feel!