4 months and eating cereal

Max had his 4 month checkup yesterday. He weighed 15 pounds 14 1/2 ounces (66%) and was 26 1/2 inches long (91%). He had to get a couple shots, but he took it like a champ and immediately stopped crying as soon as he was picked up. He also got his second dose of the oral vaccine for rotavirus, which he wasn't too sure about. For one, it was cold which is strange for a 4-month-old who has only ever had warm milk, and second, it didn't taste like milk. He held it in his open mouth for a while, trying not to let his tongue touch it, then as it moved to the back of his throat he started to gag a little. I thought, 'oh great, here it comes,' but luckily he swallowed and everything was fine.

Max has a very strong stomach and esophagus muscles and rarely spits up, and by rarely I mean I can probably count on one hand the number of times anything has come back up. But the few times anything has, it is only because he has gotten gagged by his binkie or some other item, such as baby tylenol. In fact, later that day, I gave him a dose of baby tylenol since he seemed to be a little fussy (a rarity for Max), but who wouldn't after having shots in both legs. Once again he didn't like the taste and feel of the non-milk liquid in his mouth, but this time as it moved to the back of his throat, he not only gagged, but also threw it up. Fun stuff.

At his check up we got the go ahead to start on solid foods. I was a little apprehensive about how he would take to rice cereal, knowing about this gag reflex, but so far so good. He has had a few servings, and while he is still learning how to actually take the food off the spoon and move it around in his mouth, we haven't had any gagging or spitting up yet....knock on wood. Hopefully he'll get the hang of it soon, so we can move on to all the fun messy baby foods like green beans, sweet potatoes, and carrots. Yay!