As of today, Kaia has already been exposed to 64 different types of solid food, and we have not yet reached her 8-month birthday, or two full months of solid foods exposure. Given that food, and a variety of food, is integral to my being, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that I was going to focus on this for my baby. But I shared this with a friend, who has a baby who is about 4 months older than Kaia, and she was really shocked that our baby was eating that many types of food. She started feeling bad, saying that her baby, who is half Mexican and half Bangladeshi, is really behind in the food arena and “eats like a white baby, which we need to start changing ASAP.” So today, she sent me a video of her son’s first time at almost 1-year of age, finally eating spiced dal with rice. Before this, he’d never been exposed to many spices at all. And in the video, it was pretty clear he was not a fan and started shaking his head rapidly and pushing the spoon away.

I didn’t mean to start a competition or a “keeping up with the Jones’s” mentality with solid foods, but apparently, I have incidentally had that effect now.