Motives, multiple and mixed

Babygirl has passed the seven-month mark. (What?! When did that happen?)

Babygirl has yet to be offered so much as a spoonful of rice cereal.

In light of the rather surprised reaction I got from someone who inquired about Babygirl’s eating habits the other day, I was just musing on the potential interpretations of this situation. Why might I have a seven-and-a half-month-old who’s yet to taste “solids”? Here are just a few of the motives that suggest themselves:

1) I’m some sort of lactavist who’s trying to make some sort of point.
2) I’m one of those holistic earthy (glossing “wacko”) types who sincerely believe in the mom-and-baby benefits of exclusive breastfeeding for the first year.
3) I’m too cheap to buy baby food and too lazy to make it.
4) Breastfeeding is my hobby.
5) I’m reluctant for this sweet stage of my daughter’s babyhood to end.
6) I’m concerned about potential food allergies.
7) I’m struggling with one of the following vices:

a)Gluttony, since a largish parasite makes the skinny jeans a lot more likely during the Christmas season.
b)Sloth, since those first few months of force-feeding solids are nothing but a messy hassle that adds yet another task to the daily routine.
c)Cowardice, since the more the baby nurses, the less likely she is to have a sibling anytime soon (in my humble experience. Not true for everyone, as we are all well aware).

I wish my motives were simply and sweetly multiple, rather than severely mixed, but was there ever a CSPP whose mind didn’t stampede anxiously on ahead, no matter how sternly she bid it be still? On most days, were I to untangle the web of motives behind that empty highchair tray, all of the above would be among the sticky strands. Excepting #1, because I’m really not interested in using my baby’s nutritional needs to try to make some kind of dramatic point that nobody is really interested in anyway. ‘Cause you know what? Everybody else is also busily caught up in the drama of her own multiple and mixed motives.

So. Feeling ever more Adventish, we pray ever more fervently. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. And while we wait, tease out the snarls of our knotted, fearful foolishness. Left to ourselves, we tangle, we fray, we come undone. Weave our loose threads securely into the grand tapestry, until the Day when we can finally, finally, finally see the intricacies of the Master pattern for ourselves.