Sun, sea and sick

Our first ever holiday with the baby - visiting family and friends in Italy - and what an amazing little traveller he is. Despite the fact it took us about 14 hours to get to our destination the little guy took it all with an even temper and even the occasional smile.

He greeted everyone with a happy smile, squealed with delight as we walked around medieval villages with him strapped in his Bjorn and splashed happily in his bath-with-a-view on our balcony.

However, during this week he managed to vomit in the following places:

The airline bag check queue
Over my cousin
Over my aunt
Over my other cousin
On a restaurant manager who was holding him so we could eat something.
On the hire car carseat (car seats are the worst possible thing to vomit on as removing the cover is an epic task. Confession here: we sponged it down lightly and dried it in the sun. The car reeked for the rest of the week, but we're kind of immune to it now.)

Top tip for travelling with a tof baby: ALWAYS GET ACCOMMODATION WITH A WASHING MACHINE. I seriously don't know what we would have done without it.

This fiesta of chunder would have been fine, if he'd actually been eating - but he wasn't.

As the week went on the amount of baby food he would take went from "a little bit at breakfast plus some corn snacks" to "nil by spoon". We decided he didn't like the Italian baby food (liquidised horsemeat anyone?) but it was more than that. Mealtimes were becoming stressful for him, he was actively hating food.

More than once, I had to turn away from him and have a bit of a silent sob. I pictured the surgeons giving him a gastrostomy or drip feeding him just to get his weight up. I was afraid, and of course that fear was making its way down my arm, into the spoon and into his head too.

Towards the end of the week, a glimmer of hope. His dad was eating a ripe, juicy peach when the little lad stretched up and planted his face into it. With nothing to lose (as it had already been lost about an hour before, all over the living room floor) we let him chomp away, raking at the flesh with his gums and two little teeth.

It stayed down!

At lunchtime I tore open my tortelli and fed him morsels of spinach and ricotta cheese. It stayed down too!

In the evening, we went to my cousin's for dinner and while I tucked into the spinach and ricotta tortelli they'd made for me (I know, I didn't say anything) the little guy ate some more ricotta, some more peach, even a few miniscule slivers of ham and miraculously we were able to get a few spoons of ice cream into him. He was happy, he was laughing and licking his lips.

I know enough now not to think "we've turned a corner, things will be fine from now on" but at least I know he's not a gastrostomy case yet. He can enjoy food, and someday, he will.