Eating...or not

This picture is how I found Kaelyn after a nap one day. She likes to look between her legs, kind of upside down. But usually when we're outside watching cars. Or when she's naked before bedtime and we have guests, ha! Apparently after naptime too.

I don't know what to do with this kid and her eating. Or lack thereof. I started giving her baby food with chunks in it to try to get her used to real food slowly. I tried to cut out the baby food entirely and she just didn't eat. I was afraid that would affect her sleeping and I didn't want her to get by on crackers and yogurt so I thought maybe putting chunks in things would help transition her. For awhile she was spitting out bites even with the smallest chunks. Then after awhile she'd eat them and things seemed to be going okay. Well, over the weekend she was having her yogurt for a snack. I've been getting normal yogurt now and not the baby stuff. It has chunks of fruit in it. She actually gagged on a chunk and threw up. It's the first time she's thrown up in SO long. I can't even remember the last time. I thought it was a fluke so I proceeded as normal the next day. And she did it again. And again. Hit a chunk, throw up. Not just spit out the current bite, but actually throw up. I'm starting to think she has a really sensitive gag reflex. Not sure what to do about that.

But then, at supper, after she eats some other foods, I get out the zuchinni bread. And the other night she was SO excited about that she stuffed the WHOLE piece I had out for her in her mouth...BEFORE I got a chance to break it into bite sized pieces. It was a bite bigger than any bite I would have taken...and she's smaller than me! I tried to extract what I could from her mouth but most of it was in there for good. And she didn't choke or gag on THAT. That BIG bite! So why choke on tiny bites of other things? I don't get it! She gags on bananas, chokes on strawberry and blueberry chunks, spits out any meat or potato. She's certainly old enough to be eating these things now. She doesn't really have to chew anything I give her, but she has 8 teeth so she could mash it up a bit if she needed to.

I made her 15 month appointment for the end of July. If things continue this way I'm anxious to see what the doctor has to say. Though in my experience with her, she's pretty laid back and probably will just say, oh, she'll eat eventually! :)

A friend of mine has a son that's a year older than Kaelyn and I remember her saying the 14th month was her LEAST favorite month because her son got a lot of teeth and was real grumpy and acted out etc. Kaelyn just hit 14 months and so far it has been my favorite month. She can be SO much fun and is really starting to enjoy showing off and being a ham. It's adorable.

However, yesterday we went to that friend's house and Kaelyn was a little terror! She was okay for awhile outside and we ate lunch inside and she did fine then. After that she got real screamy and I don't know WHAT her problem was. She was a little afraid of the dogs but she's gotten used to them in the past and she didn't even seem to be paying attention to them. It didn't matter what we did, inside, outside, she was just determined to scream. So I finally left to give them some peace. I was planning to leave around 1 anyways and it was 12:45 or so, but still, I didn't want to leave THAT way!! What do you do. She stopped screaming as we got down the block and played all the way home and was fine in the afternoon. It's a mystery. Some days I think I can predict her and other days I know I still don't have her figured out!