  Well, it took until she was fourteen months old, but my baby girl is finally developing something of an appetite. Just today she scavenged a good quarter of my lox bagel, three or four bites of baby cereal in apple sauce (before the customary gagging and disinterest), the handful of blueberries I then cunningly buried in her cereal in an effort to push the iron, half a banana, four or so bites of last night's leftover pizza, a few slices of apple, and four or five bites of my yogurt.
The scavenging is very effective in the calorie distribution between us. I've had to consume so many calories to maintain the milk supply that supports her growth in lieu of an appetite of her own, I think I probably eat seven or eight hundred extra calories a day. But now, as she begins to take up the load in caloric consumption, it works out rather nicely that she eats off my plate. She's literally transferring these units of energy from me, directly to her. I really wish she could find some way to enact a sleep transfer, too! Today she napped a grand total of thirty minutes, then woke up, never napping again all day. Thirty minutes is not a nap!
It's a cruel tease. All this just highlights what a unique individual my wee one already is. At this age, her brother (I think like most kids out there) was still sleeping three or four hours a day in naps and was well on his way to eating near-adult portions of every food in the fridge. That standard of portion size, btw, is now achieved at three years old. And you can imagine that with my husband's superslim metabolism and my breastfeeding needs, an adult portion is pretty big in our house.
I shudder to think of how much he'll be eating in another couple of years! Re. Ellie's uniquity, she's really something to admire. Her little personality effectively erases Locke's tabula raza theories. She was born herself . My constant struggle is to find the best way to raise someone born already raised! 
