Weaning Wednesdays: Familiarity vs. Variety

I've yet to decide if Junior J prefers the same familiar foods being served again and again, or if he likes variety.  So far, I think its both!  He's been eating oatmeal at least once a day since he loves it and never seems to tire of it, mixed with all sorts of stuff that we normally put in rice porridge (since he's not fond of rice), like fish (ikan kurau), spinach, carrots and chicken.  I usually try to sneak in more veggies by adding french beans, broccoli and cauliflower, and try to sweeten the deal by grating pear/apple into the mix.  Some days, he gets soups, which usually are a varied combination of tomato, carrots, pumpkin, onion and fish, or sometimes I'll cook a big pot of soup for ourselves (like chicken or pumpkin soup) and spoon some out for him.

The boy seems to love variety too, for example, I've been varying the way I cook eggs for the boy (he gets one egg almost everyday since the boy's not growing fast enough, and the PD said to increase the protein intake), since he seems to get tired of eggs being cooked the same way everyday.  Usually the egg gets scrambled with a combination of mushrooms, green pepper and tomato, or I'd add an equal volume of water, whisk it and steam it so that it has a smooth consistency like tofu.

He's been game to try new foods most of the time, like mango sorbet (the fellow has a sweet tooth and happy munches grapes, mango and raisins, but refuses to chew stuff in his oatmeal!) and seems to love cheese.  We've tried melting some cheddar on bits of broccoli and he eats that (he spits out broccoli if its served on its own), and he loves tomato pasta sauce when I add cheddar to it (but he doesn't chew the pasta, so I've given up feeding him pasta totally).  Yoghurt was a totally different story, he ate a small cup every morning when we started him on it, but after 2 weeks he started refusing to eat it, to the point of putting his head on the table during breakfast whenever the spoon went near his face!  Right now, however, the dairy he's been getting seems to be triggering off pretty bad reflux, and he wakes up a few times at night crying and asking for "nen-nen" (his word for milk). :(  So we've stopped the dairy products for now.  Ah well... hopefully the boy outgrows the dairy sensitivities soon, since they say some babies outgrow it at around 18 months!