How do you like those apples?

We tried the apples with Blaise this afternoon. She's not convinced, but she wasn't so sure about the rice cereal at first either. New texture, new taste. It might take her a couple of tries to decide. But she did make some great faces during the trial run.

I also want to give a little history on the fancy baby food maker. It was my Christmas gift from Ben's parents. Ben's parents have a really hard time getting gifts for me. It's my fault. I'm a hard person to get gifts for, mostly because I'm not a "stuff" person. I really do mean it when I tell people not to get me things for holidays, but people like to give gifts, so this conundrum of what to give Erin for Christmas is an annual tradition.

Last fall, well before we had any inkling that anything was wrong with Blaise, Ben's mom saw the Babycook at Williams Sonoma and thought "A-ha! Erin likes to cook. She'll probably want to make food for the baby. Perfect!" She asked Ben what he thought and he thought "Great idea!" Everyone was relieved that we could skip the "But surely you want something?" conversations. It also fills that nice gift niche of something I would never buy myself, but would definitely use if I had it. Then, after said gift has been purchased, we had the ultrasound showing a blockage in Blaise's gut. Then it was a gift that folks might feel a little weird about giving, but, hey, everyone was saying she'd be just fine. Still a great idea for a gift. (I, of course, had no idea this gift existed.)

Fast forward to New Year's Day. I'm in pre-term labor and Ben's parents are driving as fast as they can toward Boston, with the Christmas gifts in the car (they had already been planning to come up). Blaise is born and taken straight to surgery and we get the news as we knew it then: She has hardly any healthy intestine left. If she survives, she may never eat. And suddenly, the excellent Christmas gift becomes utterly impossible to give me, the worst possible gift anyone could think of. They decide not to give it to me just then. Ben told me what it was a few days later. It sat, still wrapped, in our house until after Blaise's second surgery when the game changed again. Now our baby who might never eat is our baby who loves her cereal and will, I'm sure, learn to love other foods.

Thank you, Janet and Barry. It was a perfect Christmas gift. But this Christmas, seriously, just make a donation to charity. I'm impossible to give gifts to.