Tiny bites

Sunday night my father in law was in town. Dinner was a little nerve racking because my husband was at work. I still like to have him when we do dinners with the baby.
Dinner was steak with a steamer bag f potatoes with butter and I sautéed up a bell pepper and garlic.
For baby, I decided to offer the last 1/2 of a cucumber we bought for him and left over sweet potato since the steamer bag had a bit high amount f sodium. I also offered the pepper.
I started by giving him the potato. I had warmed it up and then let it cool. It was warm, but not hot. Big mistake! Simon has never had warm food before. So, his eyes teared up and he spit it out. Then he spit up a bunch of milk. Whoops! As my husband said he will have to learn, but I will have to think of a nicer way to introduce it. I guess it fooled him because it was preloaded onto a spoon. Next time he needs to pick it up.
Then I have him cucumber which he loves! I took the top half of skin off and cut the length to make it good sized to be held in a fist. He sucked and gnawed and ate a chunk without gagging!
But...how do I ensure he doesn't gnaw off a piece too big to swallow? That is the answer I am trying to find right now.
After the chunk of cucumber and some licks of potato he was done eating! He got maybe a tablespoon of food.
We also gave him his new tommy tippee sippee cup. He has frustrated with an open glass because he had to have help with it (obviously) and he likes getting sips of water. I don't think he realized what was in the sippee until he accidentally got a drop of water. Pretty hilarious reaction to that!