Self-feeding with twins - do you dare?

So...a few weeks ago, Mackenzie's Early Intervention teacher did her quarterly (or was it annual? I lose track...) evaluation, and one of her questions was whether or not Mackenzie is feeding herself with a spoon. My response? "Um...well...I haven't exactly let them try yet."

It's not that I'm intentionally holding them back, or trying to delay their feeding development, you see...it's just that, well...it seems like we're always in a hurry in the mornings to get to a playdate or a bible study or a doctor's appointment or some other activity, and the idea of cleaning up not one, but TWO messy girls, after a first trial of self-spoon-feeding...it just seems a bit overwhelming.

Alas, a week later, we had no where to go one morning, they were still in their jammies, the kitchen floors already needed to be cleaned anyway, and so I decided to take the leap. A while back, with the best of intentions, I had picked up these little scooper things that act like spoons, but make it a bit easier for little hands to hold and scoop with. So I gave each girl a bowl of oatmeal - made extra thick that morning - and a little scooper. Mackenzie was, remarkably, much more amenable to allowing me to assist her in placing her hand properly and moving the scooper from the bowl to her mouth. Makayla was all about doing it herself and would not let me help her AT ALL, and thus got very little in her mouth...which just ended up making her very mad.

In the end, Mackenzie thought the whole process was pretty cool - and as you can see - actually seemed to enjoy playing with the abundance of oatmeal which ended up on her. Makayla, on the other hand - not so much.

I am somewhat ashamed to admit, with my head hung low, that I have not repeated this adventure yet.

HOWEVER, we are hosting a "messy" baby playdate tomorrow. Really. I'm putting painter's plastic down in the playroom, then a big comforter, and then I'm bringing our kiddie pool inside (empty, of course). And then we're filling it with about 40 lbs of cooked spaghetti noodles. And 6 little ones, between the ages of 6 months and 2 years, will get to go at it. I'm looking forward to it - we'll see how the girls do with it!! I'll be sure to post pictures!