the union Jack gives in

Jack's hunger strike has ended!

Aku the health visitor is my hero. She came by at noon today for an hour! After asking about Jack's lifelong sleep history and eating habits, she said she thinks he'll be able to sleep again just fine as soon as he starts eating again. And instead of just saying I need to keep trying different foods and textures and tastes (done that) and "persevere" (I now hate that word) like everyone else said, she offered a great suggestion.

She said Jack's throat infection when he had that virus a few weeks ago probably created a psychological aversion to food, since swallowing hurt then, which makes sense. So she suggested that I let Jack play with food without pressing the eating issue, and since he puts everything in his mouth anyway, some food might end up there as well. Brilliant--just brilliant!

So tonight I set out pots of lots of different foods on a splash mat and let Jack go to town. He loved it! He was thrilled to hold his own spoon and feed himself, even if most of his attempts went more into his ear than his mouth. And he let me feed him half a cube each of sweet potato and squash, along with several bites of plum, one or two of pears, and even quite a bit of parsnips! I had thought Jack was still too young to feed himself, but apparently he had different ideas. So in these pictures you can see the joyful result. I'm normally anti-naked baby pictures, but he has a diaper, and I was too excited that he was eating to care. I'm especially fond of the raised eyebrow on the second one. If nothing else, this baby has character.

And as a special bonus today, you get two videos. The first video is of Jack trying to blow raspberries with food in his mouth, and the second one is raspberries with Jack's new characteristic grunt at the end. He started
making this sound a few days ago, and hasn't stopped much since then. He was especially insistent on doing it last night while he was in costume. Though Ben and I tried to explain to him that spiders don't really growl, he seemed to disagree.

We're also taking action on a few more fronts. We may be hiring a housekeeper to come in a few hours a week. And I think Mom and Dad (Nonna and Pops) are going to come over for a week at the end of the month--they actually sound somewhat excited about taking responsibility for the night shift, and since Rich and Stacy will be away in Boston, Ben and I will be able to escape down the hall to an empty flat to get a few much-needed full nights of sleep.

Now let's just hope this means he'll start sleeping better. I'm not holding my breath on this yet as I think he has another tooth coming through (top left, lots of drooling and fussing all day, and he was super-clingy, never letting me put him down), but at least one problem is solved and the other should follow soon.