Baby eats! Plus, home plumbed by prisoners!

Two noteworthy things happened today. In reverse chronological order: Natalia ate her first bites of rice cereal and we found out that much of the innards of our house were installed by inmates on a job training program.

First things first. After talking with some friends this weekend about their baby's readiness for solid foods, we started thinking about our own baby Talia and the not-so-subtle signs she's been making. For example, she's been grabbing at both food and utensils and literally yanking them towards herself. One minute, you're holding her on your lap as you eat a bowl of hot chili. The next minute, she has her hand on the chili bowl, clutching it with an iron-fisted grip, and is in the process of yanking it towards the edge of the table.

She also opens her mouth - wiiiiide open - when you put a spoon up to it. We gave her an apple wedge to suck on and she went after it like a little vampire.

So, we thought, let's try some rice cereal. For anyone who remembers what our first months of "feeding" Mateo solids were like, there wasn't a whole lot of feeding involved. He cried in disgust at rice cereal. He occasionally tolerated a bite or two of baby oatmeal. Same with just about every other baby food around. We bought it. We made it. We kept food logs. Eventually, we read a great book called Child of Mine, and then we chilled out. We let him go back to his voraciously nursing self and he eventually started eating more foods as time went by. The real key was when we introduced yogurt, cream cheese, and cheddar cheese when he was about 10 months old.

Anyway, after that experience, we weren't expecting much this time around.

Boy, were we surprised when Natalia loved rice cereal. Actually, she LOVED IT. She ate IT ALL. She opened her mouth wide for every bite and seemed almost frantic to get it all down her little throat. Mateo fed her. I fed her. Sacha fed her. We just kept saying to ourselves, wow, she's actually eating it!

In the end, we tried giving Mateo a few spoonfuls, and, true to form, he grimaced and consented to eat just one bite.

The obligatory photos and video are coming soon.

**********************************************

Secondly, the prisoner thing. We were eating lunch today when a nice-looking man appeared on our porch and knocked on the door. Of course, trusting northwesterners that we have become, we let him in. Turned out, he was one half of the gay couple that we bought our house from. We had met his partner when we got the keys to the house four years ago, but not him. They were obsessive gardeners and he, on a visit to the neighborhood, wanted to see how the garden was doing. We have always kind of dreaded this moment, because we are not obsessive gardeners and are doing the best we can with the massive number of plants these guys left behind.

Anyway, after he looked around, we were chit-chatting about the house and he just happened to mention that he and his partner had bought it from a company that rehabbed old houses. Apparently, they used the services of inmates who were trying to learn new job skills. They used these inmates to do the plumbing and electrical work for our house.

We have always wondered about our plumbing, as nearly every single thing that involves water in our house has had problems. Leaking, breaking, spraying, you name it. The electrical system is also a bit bizarre. Turning on more than one appliance often results in a blown fuse and some of our light switches just don't do anything. We always thought that the previous owners had just done a shoddy job. Now we know that it was really the convicted felons that did a shoddy job! Good to know.

Big day, eh?