Ruminations on Baby Diets

It occurred to me tonight, after my 11-month-old daughter Charity refused to eat a pea that was in a spoonful of her baby food, but gladly popped in a small piece of chalk she found while scouring the baseboards, that there is some serious irony in comparing what she will and will not eat. For example, here is a partial list of things she has put (and kept) in her mouth lately:

* Scraps of paper
* Popcorn kernels
* Dust bunnies
* Thread from clothes
* Any toy she can find on the floor
* Shoes
* Socks
* Grass
* Bark
* Twigs
* Sand
* Chalk
* Dried up old pieces of macaroni and cheese that fell on the floor earlier today
* Dirt

And here is a partial list of things she quickly spits out when they find their way into her mouth:

* Peas
* Chunks of carrot
* Broccoli
* Corn
* Green beans

It seems as if her taste buds are trying to tell us something: if vegetables taste worse than dirt, don't you think they were probably never meant to be eaten?

My wife doesn't buy it.