The food monster

Mashed banana all over my face

Raghav has developed a roaring appetite, touch wood. He fell ill twice in a row and had almost stopped eating then, but since he's recovered, he has also more than recovered his appetite.

From the moment he sees his food being prepared, he starts getting excited. He will call out and utter sharp screams so that it's ample clear what he wants. When you sit him down in his high chair, he starts jumping excitedly and then banging his hands on the table; sometimes both hands for greater effect, and uttering his short sharp screams like he's scolding you to hurry with the food.

When he starts eating he continues with the jumping, banging fists and calling out between bites. Once he did that to Nalin even though he still had a mouthful of food.

When you go to get seconds, he starts crying and trying to get out of his highchair. Once Nalin was feeding him while I was preparing the second helping, and his first bowl got over but the second wasn't ready yet. Nalin hid the empty bowl from him and started feeding him with an almost empty spoon, with just wisps of food stuck to it. Raghav carried on eating for a couple of bites, but figured out quickly enough there was no actual food reaching his mouth. He then started trying to peep at his bowl which Nalin had hidden and calling out to Nalin for more actual food. Till then I arrived with a new bowl.

You can't eat any more with him around. He wants what you're eating. We've had to feed him everything from icecreams, to plain boiled rice, to shredded chicken and pastas... and then he cries when that gets over. You have to then divert his attention, which isn't too tough.

He doesn't stay quiet now if he sees anyone eat, whether it's on a train or in a restaurant. He makes his sharp calling sounds to show that he'd like to have what they're having, please.

You give him a tough piece of bread and he can occupy himself with eating it for 20 minutes.

It was when he was sick and not eating much that he started wanting to hold the spoon and feed himself. Although I wanted to encourage him to feed himself, I didn't want to do it then because he was hardly eating anyway. But I think he also tried to do that then because he was sick and didn't want to eat much and just wanted to play around with his food.

Nalin let him feed himself once and he pasted his whole face, head and ears with mashed bananas!