Because it occurs to me that we are not, and nor have we been for some time. I'm wondering if it's been since she got some teeth?
Keeping the carrots chip-sized definitely important when you are starting off, that's for sure, as it seems to be as important that the food can easily drop out of their mouths as get in there so a long, thin piece is essential. But as Babybear has got older and more active, I think her need for texture has increased to the point where she would now be most frustrated with a puny finger of food.
She likes full-sized tortillas, quartered sandwiches, big hunks of meat, individual Yorkshire puddings and whole new potatoes, bananas, apples and pears. She derives a great deal of pleasure from closely inspecting everything that is about to go into her mouth (well, on a polite day – to be fair she fairly often inhales things without giving them a second glance) and a standard-issue chip of veggie would not satisfy. She turns things around in her hands, bashes them on the table, rubs them in the puddles of water that inevitably cover her highchair before either eating them, dropping them off the side or popping them into her Tommee Tippee bib for later. It's a rich and rewarding sensory experience for a 10-month-old baby, and a monumental pain in the arse for the person who has to clean it up.