My Son is a Chipmunk

This past weekend, we traveled to visit Joy's sister Heather and her family. Heather and Adam's daughter just turned one, so between Ana and Noah, not to mention Sam, we had our hands full, especially when it came to mealtime.

Noah's just starting to eat table food and Ana is a pro at it, so each meal, we would sit around the table and tear up bits of our food to throw to the kids. Noah was a bottomless pit, eating fruit and bread and vegetables as fast as we could put them on his tray. By far, his favorite food of the weekend was green beans, and he and Ana sat at the table long after the rest of us were finished with supper downing every stray bean that came their way.

After we ate, the kids were playing on the floor and the adults were talking, when Heather heard Noah picking up the air vent on the floor. She stopped him, and I came over to gently guide him to safer exploration. As I was urging him along, he sneezed, and I saw a green bean fly out of his mouth. "That's strange," I thought to myself, but took no action. Then he bumped his head and cried out. More green beans fell out of his mouth. This concerned me a little, so I reached my finger inside his mouth to discover that Noah had filled his cheeks with green beans and was slowly eating them as he played on the floor.

He's continued this trend since getting home (we found pear stuck up there yesterday), though it could have been going on for weeks. My best guess is that living with Sam, who constantly grabs cheerios and other goodies off Noah's tray, has taught my youngest a survival mechanism of stuffing all his food in his cheeks and storing it there until needed. He's either a chipmunk or a gerbil, but quite funny no matter which you decide.