Meat and greet

Last night Chloë had her first taste of turkey. "What does she think?" I called from the kitchen.

"I don't know," Eric said. "I don't think she knows either." I came into the dining room. Chloë had a peculiar look on her face. "It's not the outright rejection that the green beans got, but she's not eager for it either."

He spooned a little more into her mouth. She rolled it around, looking dubious. "It's even more ambivalent than her reaction to the beef," he said. He stopped spooning, and she darted her head forward, grabbing his wrist; but when he offered more turkey she screwed up her face in perplexity.

I got a whiff of the turkey and muttered, "Cat food," to Eric, and he muttered back, "Stop it." But Chloë seemed to share my opinion: she likes the act of eating, but she didn't like having the turkey actually in her mouth. She didn't reject it, but she didn’t seem to know what to make of it. I've been a vegetarian so long that in some ways I don't really think of meat as food anymore. Maybe since she didn't get any in utero, she wasn't prepared to accept it as food either and was wondering why we were offering her this weird non-food item at mealtime.

Or maybe she just needs to get used to it. I ate plenty of green beans while pregnant and she downright hates those.