first bites

Abby is quickly hitting the milestones toward becoming a full-fledged member of the human race.  

Shortly after we came back from hong kong (about 2 weeks ago), she started her first bites of rice cereal.  We bought an ultra-expensive box of rice cereal there in HK, just to get started.  (All the local stuff has added sugars and other things).  Then, we ran home and jumped on the computer to find that taobao dot com has the full line of Gerber products - from rice cereal, to finger foods, the puffs, wagon wheels, fruit snacks, etc.  All for pretty close to American prices, too!

Anyway, so back to the story. We were ready for the first foray into texture.  Emma and Samantha were lined up in their little plastic chairs, cheering abby on from the sidelines.  They were both expecting her to eat "smushed up carrots" this day, but were happy enough with the rice cereal choice.  

Abby wasn't quite sure what all the hoopla was about (ie, cameras set up, girls watching, daddy closeby, even our house helper crowded around to see what the first reaction would be), but she was happy, as usual.  

She got the hang of it pretty quickly...
...especially when little hands give her extra guidance!  What would she do without those sisters?
Sure, it's a little messy...
But she was happy!  She's now settled into a nice routine of eating quasi-normal stuff, and Emma and Samantha are delighted that the smushed up carrots have been added now.  
Intro to crawling and first teeth have also been recent additions, but more on that later...