First Meal Shivers

Addie had her first solid meal today at five months old. I say solid food, but in all actuality the best way to describe this rice cereal mixed with mother's milk would best be described as somewhere between the consistency of runny oatmeal and snot. Not the most appetizing of items on the menu.
Addie sat in her little chair wearing a plastic bib and looking at the small spoon waving in front of her little face. She looked puzzled. We looked puzzled. Larry, our dog, just wanted to eat the cereal. The first spoonful found an opening in her mouth and I shoveled it in...it came back out and rolled like a little river of sludge, like an oil spill, like a bear's cold porridge down into the little envelope designed to catch just this substance.
One scoop in, one scoop out: that is how this experiment in feeding went. Addie had it on her forehead, left hand and elbow, and circumnavigating her mouth. She "ate" without understanding.
Do you remember your first shot of tequila or whiskey? Do you remember tilting your head and letting the shot enter? Do you remember the warm feeling as it rolled down your throat, and then the taste? The taste that sent a shiver up your spine, and an uncontrollable spasm up from your stomach to your neck and into your face where you turned your head, squished your face, and shook, just briefly, like eating a sour lemon?
That is exactly what Addie looked like. She had her first spoon-fed food.
And she hated it.