Bad Beef (or how Jacob found his gag reflex, or Jacob gagging)

There is a fairly famous (in our family) piece of footage of my dad when he was a young boy. He was probably between 2 and 4 years old. The old home movie was shot by my grandpa. Grandpa had organized and labelled the movies years ago and we found this particular one when I was a senior in high school after he had passed away. The movie was taken on Easter and the whole family was having a picnic and easter egg hunt in the mountains. A very memorable trip that could have been labelled as Easter, family outing, springtime, picnic, etc. The title is simply, "Leland Gagging". Grandpa panned across the family eating hard boiled eggs while sitting on a blanket and just as my dad goes out of the frame grandpa darts back to dad only to catch dad have a pretty violent dry heave-ish gag followed by a heavy shudder. So daddy, I want you to know that even though this boy may not look like you, he sure has a mean beginner's gag.

Now on to how Jacob found his gag reflex. I should have known it wouldn’t taste good to him if it made me sick just to open the jar. Two words: cat food. We had (unfortunately) not tried meats until today. It was an exciting foray into the world of a reluctant eater. Until now Jacob has slurped down cereals, vegetables and fruits with unchanged enthusiasm. The pears smelled so good I almost got two spoons out when he ate those. Needless to say, I have been terribly proud of his like of green beans and peas. However, as my friend Kelli says, “I had better make my words nice and sweet because I’ll be eating them later”. Touché Kelli, touché.

So, please feast your eyes on a series of gags that all took place in response to ONE bite of beef...although my camera was not fast enough to catch each and every gag. I know they are not necessarily real gags, but they were positively overwhelming him and very funny. Plus, if this makes any sense, his eyes were definitely gagging. After I had preserved the moment in film, (if only you could see the video) and made him eat more for the camera, he ate some green beans (to make his mommy feel good).



These two pictures look just the same, but they were taken during two separate gags.















So happy after the beans...



So wistful after the beef.

I have a feeling we will be purchasing all of the meat and apples line. Shudder.