For comedy value alone, I'd have to give cottage cheese a well-deserved A+. It's the single most amusing foodstuff she's ever consumed, and, well, it's certainly answered any questions we might have had about her pincer grip... she hasn't got one.

Oh, and by the way I am about to go through and change the baby's name again... it's going to be Babybear now, as my husband actually pointed out that we call her that more often than Babybird... sorry for any confusion, it is the same child I promise...

Anyway, I wasn't 100% what to do with the cottage cheese but inspired by Corriedale's insistence that her talented child eats it by the fistful  I plonked some on the highchair table.

The chubby paw went out to grab it as quick as you like, but of course it had mostly squished out through her fingers by the time she brought her hand to her mouth. This led to her chasing the little gobbets of cheese around her hand, up her arm, into her sleeve, and round and round her wrist. You gotta give her points for persistence...

We later tried it on a spoon, not too much, we really just dipped it into the pot, and the baby grabbed it and smushed it lovingly into her general cranio-facial area, occasionally pausing to chew on the spoon.

So thanks, Corriedale, Babybear loved the cottage cheese and it's now firmly on our regular shopping list. Oh, yeah, and thanks for warning me that she would require a full bath, hair wash and change of clothes afterwards...

Post Script
Since the advent of the pincer grip we are really making some progress with this, as Babybear has suddenly grasped the point of the spoons that I occasionally litter her high chair tray with. Where previously she has been utilising them as chew toys, drum sticks and impromptu eye gougers, she can now hold onto them properly round the handle (I've got some shaped Tommee Tippee ones) and feed herself without too much mess. We operate two spoons at a time, so I'm not shovelling anything into her mouth I promise. Anyway, it's made cottage cheese a much less messy prospect, whihc can only be a good thing.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have a pincer grip. (Applause, applause...)

Don't know where it came from, but as of yesterday all Babybear does is stick her index finger into things (including her water glass, where any Stinkerbell-inspired progress is now going backwards) and catch things with her thumb. Oooh so very cute.

I've been looking for some time for an addition to our 'always in the buggy bag' staples of rice cakes and water, and now we have 'em. I had thought it best to avoid sultanas because of the choking hazard thing but now I can adopt the 'if she can pick it up, she can eat it' approach with a fearless heart. What I do is squash the sultanas as I give them to her so that as least I know that the skin is broken. It's heart-meltingly sweet to see her laboriously picking them up from her highchair tray, and heart-soaringly joyful to be able to hand her a sultana and head off a gurning episode in Sainsbury's. Hu-zzah.

I think might have cracked the grapes/choking thing...

I've been trying to choose bigger ones, obviously, then washing and cutting them in half before giving them tho Babybear. But they still seemed like solid little suckers just waiting to get trapped in a tiny trachea...

However, and forgive me if this seems terribly obvious, if you kind of pop the grape flesh outwards with your thumb before handing it over it is much easier for them to suck and chew.

Also, I have been making sure that there is a tear at the top of the skin of the grape half (I rip it with my fingers) so that it comes apart more easily for her and hopefully diminishes the risk of it getting caught in her throat. It seems to have worked, yesterday she ate about 15 grapes. Made for a very interesting nappy this morning.

Having said all that, if your baby is brand-new to Baby Led Weaning I would wait until they had got the hang of things before giving them halved grapes to hold themselves. I used to hold onto them between my thumb and forefinger when we first started. You can't be too careful and all that...

Post Script.
Yeah, you can go to the trouble of making a tear in the top of your grape half if you wish... but why not do the more obvious thing and cut it when you cut the damn thing in half? So, you know, make a cross in the top of your grape and half down it. Clearly I am an idiot, it has taken me two months to work this out....

Okay, perhaps the bravado is misplaced, it's really just potato wedgie things that my delightful husband cooks but they really are delicious.

He gets some King Edwards or some other good chip potato and cuts them into wedges then gets a bowl with a small amount of olive oil (say, 1 dessertspoon) and a splash of soy sauce (1 teaspoon) and tips the potatoes in and rubs them with the mixture.

Then onto a wire rack in your roasting dish for about, say 40 mins (start prodding after half an hour). If you don't have a wire rack then you'll need to turn them halfway, although really it's best with the rack as the air circulates all around and they go crispy. Delia says to use a baking tray but she is wrong.

Obviously, the soy sauce is salty so it should technically be left off, but I always have to run them under the tap to cool them down for Babybear anyway so I guess it's washed off. Anyway, you'll see when/if you make them that the vast majority of the oil and soy get left in the bowl. By the way, we think organic potatoes taste better so that's what we use. (Get us...)

And sometimes, dammit, if we are out in a restaurant and I know that their food is of good quality and that their chips will arrive unsalted... then I give Babybear a chip. And she loves it.