Yes - play with your food!

I suppose the idea of food is really foreign to babies. After all, they put many things into their mouth all day long and everything has its own flavor, but hopefully most don't break apart or are ok to swallow.

As I watch Penny experiment with new foods for the first time, namely a piece of home made pretzel, I wonder about what she might be thinking..

"Hmm this is so soft and squishy..and warm. It smells so good! Weird, it gets soggy after a while. What gives?"

The main concept of baby led weaning is "food is for fun before one." So each time I give Penny something new to try, I look at it from the perspective of giving her a new toy rather than having a goal in mind. She doesn't understand yet that a squeaky toy does not have any nutritional value, so on the same token, squishing a banana sounds like a ton of fun!