On food...again

I spent a month in the U.S. without anyone asking me what Dylan eats (or giving me unsolicited advice on anything baby related). No such luck now that we are back in Italy. I think I was waiting for my baggage in Malpensa airport after our return flight when the first person inquired how old Dylan was and if he'd already begun eating pasta, prosciutto, fish or yogurt. The answer was no, no, no and no. We left for the U.S. when Dylan was only six-and-a-half months old, so while in the U.S., I kept him on what there are called the "first foods. " Things, such as sweet potatoes, green beans, zucchini and peas mixed with rice or oat cereal and apples, pears or bananas for dessert. I really didn't want to begin introducing a lot of new things while we were far from home and far from his (much despised) pediatrician. Before leaving for the U.S., she had given me a list of what he could eat and when but I barely glanced at it because I knew I wasn't going to introduce anything new on the road.

Since we've been back, I get almost daily questions about what he's eating, even from strangers. "Why hasn't he had cod yet?" or "When is he going to eat ricotta cheese? He's almost eight months old!" Now that I've taken a good look at the list the pediatrician gave me, I realize that I am not going to follow it to the letter anyway. Pasta al pomodoro is recommended at seven months! Personally I wanted to wait until at least nine or ten months to introduce tomato. I compromised and added a bit of baby pasta to his lentil soup for lunch today. I'm also tired of people asking me disapprovingly if I'm going to raise him vegan. Just because he doesn't eat meat and dairy at every meal, I am not enforcing a vegan diet. He has had tastes of prosciutto cotto, yogurt, chicken, turkey, parmesan cheese and crescenza cheese but I don't think he needs to eat those things at every meal or even every day if he's getting all of his dietary needs met in other ways. If Dylan grows up here, I think his eating habits will be under constant scrutiny because he has a foreign mother (a vegan no less!) and not just because I will send organic peanut butter celery sticks instead of a Nutella sandwich for his school snack. It gets tiring...