Over the past few weeks, we’ve started Lucy on solid foods. At her last pediatrician’s appointment the doctor said it was a good time to start, but my wife had been preparing before that. We’ve decided to make our own baby food because we’ll know exactly what in it, it’s cheaper and it’s pretty darn simple (just cook a fruit or vegetable, mash it up and freeze for later use). As such, our freezer is packed with ice cube-sized bits of frozen pumpkin, summer squash, apples and more! Above you can see Lucy’s actual eating set up. We use the Chicco 360 Hook On seat which is great because it can clamp on to any table and the seat spins all the way around which means she can watch me in the kitchen when I cook. We went with this kind of a chair because our place is kind of small and a full-on high chair would have added way too much clutter. Plus, this is easily portable when we go visit friends and family.For a serving dish, we use what’s called  a 893 Hankscraft USA (the pink thing above). My mother-in-law gave it to us and it’s actually a really cool idea. See, the bowl is ceramic and the bottom half is hollow, so what you do is add hot water to one of the holes on the side to keep food warm or in our case help with the defrost and then pop the cork back in. I don’t think Hankscraft is still around, but you can find the dishes with a Google search. They’re definitely worth checking out if you’re going the frozen baby food route. As far as actual eating goes, we get a lot of looks like the one seen above the first time she tries something. In addition to the summer squash, apples and pumpkin I mentioned, she’s also had a mixture of pear and apple as well as some mashed bananas, sweet potatoes (from inside a fry) and avocado off my wife’s salad (that was just last night). At first we get a “why am I doing this?” kind of look but after a few tries she tends to warm up to the idea. I think she’s getting the hang of the different tastes and the whole concept of gumming and swallowing food. The only problem? Solid food leads to solid poop!