Sweet Potatoes, Pears, and Carrots, Oh My!

So we've been continuing on into the wonderful world of solid food with Arden. Her first non rice cereal "meal" was of mashed sweet potatoes. She continued to be pretty indifferent to the whole idea and was also just spitting them back out a lot. So I tried thinning them out and then added some of the rice cereal to the mixture (mostly because I had thinned it too much) That seemed to work and she was able to swallow more. She still wasn't "excited" about them, but at least I knew they were going in (and coming out the other end, but we won't go into those nice details :) Then it was onto pears. I'm making all of my own food, so they were steamed and then pureed. The first feeding she again wasn't to sure about them and did a whole body shiver once she swallowed. But at least she was swallowing and not drooling them out. The they next couple of feedings I waited on feeding her solids a few hours after I had nursed her and that seems to be the trick. Feed her when she's hungry and she seems to fine with eating anything and even opening her mouth wide to help! Sometimes she thinks she's helping by grabbing the spoon but then half of it will end up in her hands. In the past few nights she's really been swallowing quite well and she even finished an entire serving of pears and rice cereal so I tried carrots. I was expecting her to be taken aback that it was not another mouthful of the sweet pears but she didn't even miss a beat and kept right on eating the carrots. We have discovered that Mommy is a little neater feeding her then Daddy and that anything orange is really messy. She eats in just a bib and diaper now and gets a bath every night. immediately following her dinner. But she's doing well, and every few days we'll try a new fruit or veggie.