There are few things in this world that make me feel quite as virtuous and Earth-Mama as making my own baby food. I don't do it very often... I'd like to, because the taste of most of the jarred stuff grosses me out and I always feel a little squirrelly about shoveling something into my son that reminds me strongly of cardboard mixed with caterpillar guts. But I was a full-time student and worked three part-time jobs this last semester, I didn't have time to feel guilty about jarred baby food, much less to feel guilty about not making my own.

So, now, I'm done with everything... classes are done, work is done, and I'm officially a SAHM. And the other night I realized, "Hey, that's right, this stuff is gross!" I don't have the constitution necessary to adequately pulverize chicken, so he'll still get the jarred stuff along those lines (that's gross anyway, right? No reason to take part in the creation of grossness, right? Something like that...). But fruit and veggies, that I can handle. So I threw some peaches and bananas and so on at the blender last night, and viola, several bags of small cubes of frozen yummy-ness for His Highness.

And this morning, when Jacob was ready for breakfast, I thawed out some peach cubes, set him up in his high chair, and gave him a taste. It's a stronger flavor than he's used to - I don't know if the jarred stuff is watered down, or has preservatives that decrease the flavor, or what, but it's seriously, terminally bland. So real peaches caught his attention this morning. After a moment, his little toes started to wiggle, and his legs kicked, and his butt wiggled, and he generally sort of had a whole-body moment of ecstacy. Turns out he knows the sign for "more," and if I don't shovel fast enough he is perfectly able to yell at me until I do. All he needed was a little whip and he'd have been the perfect little taskmaster.

It's just nice to get some feedback that peeling and blending and freezing various poor, innocent fruits was worth the effort.