Today, Kaia had salmon for the first time. After seeing how well she did with sardines all week, I wasn’t surprised to see her embrace her steamed salmon with garlic and black pepper. She clearly loves to self feed; the spoon feeding doesn’t always seem to work with her, and she very much prefers to be in control of what goes into her mouth. Sometimes, she gets a bit too aggressive with her big bites, though, and she ends up gagging and spitting the food out. I always wonder what she is thinking when she’s presented new foods and deciding what to eat and how much, if she actually understands what I mean when I am doing exaggerated modeling of chewing and big bites, and telling her to “chew, chew, chew!”

When I started using social media years ago, I always thought it was a bit comical when I’d read about people talking about or making the “nom nom nom” sound while eating something they enjoyed. But then I realized in the last few weekends while feeding Kaia… that it actually sounds like she makes that exact same sound. She goes between “mmmmm” and “maaa maa maaa” as well as “num num num” over and over again while eating something she seemingly enjoys.

So, did “nom nom nom” actually originate from baby sounds while eating?