MARK MY WORD: PARENTS BANK ON VARIETIES OF BABY FOOD

But nothing makes a mess like those little jars of food-in-a-blender baby food.

Eating isn't for the faint of heart with 8-month-olds. There is no way around it. They are downright messy.

Joni and I had forgotten just how messy it can be. After all, it's been four years since we've had this kind of mess with our daughter Becca.

At age 4 1/2, she doesn't eat much anymore and what she eats is real food.

Baby food is a different story. Our youngest daughter, Bailey, is in the baby food stage.

We strap her in the highchair and put a bib on her.

You have to have a highchair for this kind of eating, although no highchair has a large enough tray on it to keep food from falling onto the floor.

Ideally, you want to do this on top of one of those plastic drop cloths that painters use.

You'd think the EPA would have set up a Superfund by now to deal with such spills.

At any rate, you get out the baby food and begin spoon feeding your child.

Immediately, you see the problem. It's hard to keep that soupy baby food on such a small spoon.

If adults had to eat with such utensils, we'd never finish our meals. It just takes too long.

And all those little jars of baby food can clog up your cabinets. I'm convinced that stuff multiplies behind closed doors.

It doesn't matter the brand, all baby food looks the same. It all looks like carrots or apple sauce. That's what we'd all be eating if we put our food through a blender.

Joni always buys a variety of jar foods for our baby. Baby food comes in combinations: apples and pears, carrots and beef, oatmeal and apples, sweet potatoes and turkey, carrots and peas, and green beans and turkey.

For dessert, there's banana yogurt and bananas with tapioca.

Bananas and carrots seem to be everywhere in baby food. Carrots, in particular, make a gooey, orange mess that can really stain your clothes.

Banks should give robbers exploding baby food along with the cash. There's no way bandits could spend baby-food-dyed money. It would look and smell bad.

Joni has tasted some of the baby food. She has more courage than I do. Maybe it's a mom thing. Moms worry about what they feed their babies.

Dads simply figure if it's too bad, the baby won't eat it.

So far, Bailey seems fairly content with all that mushy, blender food. But then, she hasn't tasted real food, except for crackers and Cheerios.

With only two teeth, she can't crunch it. She depends on a little baby saliva to soak the cracker to the point that it simply falls apart in her mouth.

At times, pieces of cracker protrude from her mouth like so many cigars.

Bailey likes Cheerios, although most of them end up scattered on the floor or lost in the folds of her clothes.

You can't just shove spoonfuls of a single jar of baby food in her mouth at meal time.

You have to give her two different entrees -- first one, and then the other.

When she is done eating, you know it. She clamps her mouth shut or starts whining.

Either way, you know it's time to let her loose among the living-room-floor toys.

Of course, you're not finished yet. You have to clean up the tray and the now-oozing mess of baby food.

If this were a restaurant, you'd have to tip the waiter in advance for this kind of cleanup.

As parents, you get to do the job for free.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.