Spicy food

Long ago when Margaret was just a gleam in her mother's eye, I had a conversation with a friend in Chicago about life changes that followed the arrival of a baby. Some changes, he said, were major, but others became less dramatic over time. "Such as diapers, for example," I said, "You must be immune to stinky diapers at this point." "Sure, most of the time," he said, "But there are still those instances when you open a diaper and say 'Holy cow!'"

As hardcore fans of this blog know, Margaret has been a pretty fussy eater for the last few months. Won't really try new foods and seems averse to odd textures and flavors. In fact, we speculated that, in addition to being generally difficult for the sake of being difficult, she may not like unfamiliar flavors. But then tonight, I made chili. Really spicy chili with onions, garlic, lots of chili powder and even more cumin tossed in for extra flavor. On a whim, I gave Margaret some of the meat from the pot as the chili was cooking. The initial reaction indicated disapproval, but the funny face appeared to be due to "oven" heat rather than the spicy heat. Once it cooled, she scarfed it down. Hmm, I thought, how about some of the beans from the chili? Margaret never eats beans, rather she picks up, mashes and then drops them. But she devoured the beans as well. Completely inexplicable behavior that tempts me to make some other spicy food like a curry to see if she likes it as well.

To tie this eating episode back to the initial anecdote, after a few small servings of chili, I eventually told Abby, "That's probably enough. I bet that her tummy will feel strange later on tonight." Which led to my next thought, "I'm sure glad that I won't have to change her diapers tomorrow." Sorry Ms. Jakki, Ms. LaDonya, Ms. Kiran and Ms. Krystal.