An anecdote.

Last night we went out to eat at a cafeteria-- they're a Midwestern thing, I think-- I never saw them in the south to speak of, but they're everywhere here. Once you get over the flashbacks of bad school lunches (which the food usually does not resemble), you have to admit they are nice-- no waiting on servers to bring you things (a benefit which I am acutely aware of nowadays, since it seems dinner inevitably comes just after Mae has reached the end of her patience). Anyway, we brought along a banana and some smoked thin-sliced beef brisket for Mae, but turned out to not really need it. There were a variety of overcooked and underseasoned vegetables available among the cafeteria's selections. So we picked out some green beans and broccoli (hold the cheese) for her and let her loose on them. Secretly, I had not believed that she would really like broccoli. Especially underseasoned, floppy broccoli. But she did! She did her little excited leg-kick when she saw it, and leaned out across her tray to get at the large stalk I was handing her. She couldn't decide which end she wanted to work on-- stem or florets. She did a pretty good job with it, ended up eating three(-ish)* large pieces (the fluffy green bits, anyway) in all. Towards the end, though, when there were several different things on her tray and she was getting a bit tired and overstimulated, at one point she just picked up the stalk enthusiastically, brought it halfway to her open mouth, then dropped it and reached immediately for some of the white beans from my ham and bean soup that I had given her. So many choices! The point of all this is just to say: Yay! The baby will eat broccoli! * I say '-ish', because there was a good half cup of debris in the highchair. Still not three full florets worth, though.