The more teeth Abigail gets, the less willing she is to eat baby food, or even chopped up food. She wants it whole, and she wants to bite it all herself: apples, peaches, strawberries, bread, graham crackers, green beans, lunch meat. If I take food from my plate and cut it up for her, she keeps pointing at mine because she wants the Big Pieces. If I try to put a bite of food in her mouth, she rears back in disgust and then takes it away from me, either to eat it or throw it down. There are only a few exceptions– is if she is hungry and wants to eat faster, she’ll tolerate a certain number of spoonfuls, or if we are sharing something and trading bites. Then she will let me feed her so long as she gets to feed me first. She likes to put a pea or a blueberry in my mouth and then take it back to eat it herself. Yes, I let her do it. We shared bodily fluids for so many months–heck, I fed her my bodily fluids!– that a little spit seems like nothing. (Sorry if that last line grossed out you non-breastfeeders.) I can only imagine how delighted she will feel to finally get some molars. She’s going to be asking me if she can eat sand just to test her mashing and grinding powers.

Abi’s spent a couple days sucking an empty bottle, carrying it from room to room with her and refusing substitutions like sippy cups or pacifiers. At first I wasn’t sure if it was some psychological soothing thing in the face of her growing independence, or if she was teething again. It was teething. Yesterday I spotted a new tooth on the top left; today I found another on the bottom right. So she’s got six teeth that don’t line up, and a cute lopsided grin. I wonder what she eats in her dreams?