Weekends away and starting solids

Last weekend, M and I went on a Creative Memories scrapbooking retreat. I wasn't sure about taking M with me (most of the ladies there are Mums, and the weekend away is not only to work on their albums, but to get away from their kids!!!), but it worked out fairly well. She just started sleeping through again (finally) last week, but of course didn't on the weekend. On Sunday morning, I realised that she must be growing through a growth spurt, so figured out how to deal with that. On the whole, M coped very well, and enjoyed playing and having lots of cuddles with the ladies. I even got some album pages done - and they weren't about M. I've started our 2001 family memories album; I'm going to wait another month or two before starting M's album, as I think there's some exciting new products on the way ...
With the growth spurt in mind, on Sunday night, we tried M with some rice cereal mixed with a bit of breast milk. She ate it all, making some very exciting faces along the way (what is this mushy stuff in my mouth? it tastes a bit like milk, but it's more squodgy?). We were very excited that our journey to solids was on the way. On Monday afternoon, I tried a bit more farex, but it was perhaps too quickly after M's afternoon tea, and she did not take to it well. Either that, or she'd sussed us out and suspected us of poisoning her *joke*. We tried farex a couple more times for the next few days, then last night tried some organic pumpkin and wild rice (freebie in a baby bag). This also didn't go down well - M clamped her jaws shut and kept turning her head. I wasn't sure if this was a "I don't like it, not ready for it" signal or a "Not really very keen on this mushy stuff you keep shoving in my mouth" signal. I tried again this afternoon, as that's generally M's hungriest time - she wakes up from her pre-dinner catnap adamantly requesting food. After many attempts, I thought our best plan of action might be to smear her bib with food, and let her suck it off ... but something happened, and she finished the two teaspoons of food I'd scooped out for her!! There was pumpkin on her feet, on me, all over her face ... but I hope at least half of it made it into her tummy ... :)
I'll post pics later ...