Diabolical Puffs

My nemesis stands 1/8th of an inch tall. It's shaped like a star. It tastes like apples and cinnamon, and doesn't have much nutritional value.

It is the puff. Or, more correctly, puffs, because there are so damn many of them.

For those of you who aren't elbow-deep in the baby world, puffs are little, fluffy cereal bites for babies. Think Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, only lighter. Annabelle loves them.

I don't.

This isn't to say there's anything wrong with puffs themselves. Gerber makes a nice product that is a great supplement to meals. They're tiny, they're delicious, and they melt in your mouth.

But I hate them. So much.

It all started a couple weeks ago when Bridget suggested we get some puffs so Annabelle could "work on her pincer grasp." (I think there was a crack of thunder when Bridget made this suggestion, but I can't be sure.) Working on her pincer grasp is a fancy way of saying working on picking up small things.

The next morning, as I was feeding Annabelle some breakfast, we tried the puffs. She was confused at first (that happens a lot with a six-month old), but figured it out quickly. She picked them up, played with them, and really enjoyed eating them. She didn't actually feed herself, but we were pleased.

The morning after that, she ate even more puffs. In fact, she preferred the puffs to her oatmeal. By a lot. And that's when things went downhill.

Puffs became an obsession. Other foods Annabelle loved, like apples, pears, and oatmeal, were cast aside like a photo of an old girlfriend. Day after day, it was puffs, puffs, puffs. Here, see for yourself:

Cute? Sure. Frustrating? Definitely. I even tried that bait-and-switch technique where I'd show the puff, get her to open her mouth, and then go in with the oatmeal. This made me feel shady and dishonest, though.

Annabelle had made up her mind. It was puffs or nothing. For days on end.

This may sound somewhat adorable, but I feed Annabelle breakfast every morning. I want her to have variety and high-caloric foods like avocados and bananas so we can make her nice and chubby. But she has other ideas and, I've quickly learned, she means "no" when she says it. I beg. I plead. I do the whole airplane loop thing. Nope. Give me 10 more puffs, Dad. And make it snappy.

So now what? What do we do with her beloved puffs? Well, they aren't welcome at breakfast (or any meal) anymore. They're buried deep in the pantry. To me, they're dead.

Sure, I feel a little bad. It's not like puffs did this on purpose. Really, it's Annabelle's fault. But, as you might guess, my daughter is perfect, so puffs get the blame and become the nemesis.

We have an extra container of puffs if anyone is interested. We won't be needing them.