Clara's six month "stats" and a question I'd like help with . . .

A few things I wanted to say in this post. First of all, we went to Clara's six month appointment yesterday, and she weighed in a 15 lb, 1 oz. and was 25.5 inches long. Both of those are in about the 25th percentile, which she has always been, so she just keeps growing at the same rate! I've been doing a lot of things lately with her, as she is at such a fun age. The top picture is at Peter and Amber's lake, which she really enjoyed. Below is a picture of her eating a "banana rice cereal puff thing" for lack of a better term, and that is the real reason I wanted to blog: to talk about eating.

Before I get into my request for suggestions, I'll just make this comment: Today was the first day I gave her little finger foods to pick up and eat by herself, and it is amazing to watch! The dedication, concentration and perseverance that goes into getting one little tiny bite of food into her mouth is incredible . . if we adults had to work that hard for each piece of food we ate . . . well, let's just say I probably wouldn't still be 10 pounds over my pre-Clara weight! But anyway, my question is this: how much did your six month old eat baby food? Did he/she like it within a month of trying it? We have done squash, sweet potatoes, green beans, and now pears mixed with cereal (the cereal plain just wasn't a hit at all). She has had one day where she was just apparantly starving and ate about 15 "bites" of squash, but, other than that, we get about 3-4 bites in her once or maybe twice a day. She sits in the high chair and just looks around. She's distracted by everything: the dog, the noises in the house, anyone who is around, whatever. She would rather just look around and maybe talk to me or blow bubbles. Then, after 5-10 minutes in there, she whines, and I give up and help her sign "All done" as I don't want to reinforce her whining as a means to getting down. Then, she gulps down half of her bottle, and is pretty much done with that, too! She is still needing 5 feedings a day and so she doesn't go to bed until between 9:00-10:00 at night because I just can't get her to eat enough in 4 feedings to feel like she could go to bed around 8:00. Sorry for the rambling . . . it's really not that big of a deal . . . she's perfectly healthy and growing and doing all the developmental stuff she's supposed to be doing . . but I just thought I'd see what people out there say . . . ideas?