A Really Bad Idea

AJ is at a stage where he only wants to eat what he can get into his mouth on his own. I am trying to encourage him to be independent and to explore things that he is curious about, such as feeding himself. However, as you can see from this picture, certain items are not conducive to an 8 month old feeding himself, including oatmeal. Huge mess everywhere--on his shirt, all over the highchair, on the floor, in his hair, and even in his left nostril. He loves to hold the spoon and to put in his mouth, so he does well if I put the food on the spoon and then let him pilot it into his mouth on his own. It may bonk off his cheek once or twice on the way there, but he eventually gets it in the goal. But he doesn't yet get that he is supposed to use the spoon as a tool to scoop up the food, so if I let him try to get the food onto the spoon, he will hold the spoon in one hand and dig into the dish of oatmeal with the fingers on his other hand.

On days when the spoon seems like too much mess to deal with, I have been experimenting with finger foods. He loves to feed himself peas, corn, diced peaches, diced banana, pasta, waffles, toast crusts and shredded mozzarella cheese directly off his tray. Joe is excited that AJ is 2/3 of the way to eating a pizza since he can do crust and cheese. Now we just need to work on the sauce.