The neverending food pile

November 13th, 2007

Why are you always taking pictures of me eating?

I realized that Avery eats more if he thinks he’s about to finish everything off. So I keep adding a little to the food pile. He starts getting smart and selectively choosing the cubes of cheese and fruit that he likes best.




Baby's first indian food

October 27th, 2007

Don’t worry, we didn’t give him the vindaloo. We decided to venture down to Cary for a trip to Trader Joe’s and get some decent indian food at Udupi Cafe. We figured hes old enough to really eat what we eat, and we looove indian food. He’s had some spices already (ginger, onion, garlic, cilantro), lentils, chickpeas, mangos, and of course yogurt. We figured we could find something besides just some rice for him to eat. And we always have the cheerios/freeze dried apirciots backup.

We order some dosai. Avery got some lentil “donut” in yogurt (can’t remember the name, it was sweet), some of my mango lassi (fruit and yogurt, loved), some dosai (without the spicy filling), and some rice. He did pretty well at the restaurant for about an hour and then he realized he badly needed a nap. It was very yummy though, and he liked all of it. Slowly we’re trying to introduce him to the foods we really eat, rather than just plain everything.




Ah, post-industrial life.

October 22nd, 2007

Things like this are the reasons we prefer to avoid processed foods, make our own babyfood, eat local and organic, avoid synthetic dyes and colors, and not buy tons and tons of cheap plastic crap from your nearest big box retailer. We live in the modern world, of course, which means an acceptance of some level of industrial-ness (is that a word?) in our environment and thus our lives. We can cut it out where possible, however. I mean, just the NICU exposure to pthalates in the IV bags and GI tube that went into his tiny body gets to me. Would Avery would have thrived without these modern interventions though? Our modernization comes at a cost, making every exposure a risk/benefit analysis. I mean, does dying ketchup green to make it more appealing to kids make it worth loading up said kids with food dyes derived from coal? Our bodies are designed to protect from and repair damage but they can only handle so much. We should be conscious of what we willingly expose them to.

Ok, rant complete.




Parenting notes for later

October 16th, 2007

Lately I’ve been doing a little more reading up on parenting strategies. Especially since Avery is now fully aware of his ability to manipulate us and whine until he gets what he wants. For example, Avery’s diet has recently shifted to 75% yogurt, 25% everything else (which includes a lot of fruit). As good as yogurt is, he shouldn’t completely exist on it. We realized that when he refused to eat foods, we would just give him some yogurt since it was a sure thing to make sure he got the calories. He soon discovered that if he refused to eat, he would be rewarded with his favorite food: yogurt. Now, we’ve taken a different approach. He loves to self feed so we’re making sure to put a variety of finger foods on his tray. Then we feed him non-yogurt foods while he’s chowing down on the finger food, distracted from the onslaught of fruits and veggies. He’s actually pretty good at self-feeding now. I’d estimate a 75% success rate on tray to mouth transfer. If he doesnt eat, we let him get what he can from self-feeding, and rest assured that if he’s hungry, he’ll eat. If he really didn’t eat much, we’ll just make another attempt in an hour or so. And he still gets plenty of yogurt, but now its offered as a snack or meal and not as a stop-gap measure.

On the drinking front, hes getting better with the sippy cup. He knows how it works and which end gives the goods. He judges on a case by case basis whether he’ll take it though. Sometimes, he’s just interested in shaking it and watching the tray fill with water to push around. We’ve enlisted a new drinking strategy as well: kefir and drinkable yogurt. That’ll get him interested in the sippy cup!

Also, I’m taking notes for future parenting strategies we could use: book traps!




Spoiled already.

October 5th, 2007

Yesterday we got some salmon to try with Avery. The guy behind the counter looked at us a little weird when we asked for a 1/5 lb tail piece. We said it was for the kiddo and he said everything he got when he was a kid came out of a jar. Tonight for dinner, Avery had 1 or 2 ounces of salmon (wild-caught pacific), some mango puree mixed with mashed banana, and a few cubes of cheese and potatos.

What did I have? A bowl of cereal with the rest of the banana.




Why does something called "vegetable turkey dinner" have apples as the first ingredient?

October 4th, 2007

Ingredients: Water, organic apples, organic carrots, mechanically separated organic turkey, organic whole barley flour.

I’m pretty sure carrots only qualify as a half-vegetable anyways. I mean, I’m not complaining. It has organic things, no sugar, but really does it have to be sweet to be eaten by a child? I mean, the kid likes nori and sardines. I think he’ll be fine if it just has vegetables and turkey.




MmmMmm. Avocados.

September 27th, 2007

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Avery attempted to grab the spoon mid-flight. He then proceeded to take his avocado covered hand and rub his face and eyes. And I thought babies only had sticky hands..

Also, this (below) is what happens when you switch up the spoons of avocados and bananas (loves) with fava beans (not so much). I think the picture speaks for itself.

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In the end, sneezing is not as hilarious as we once thought..

August 26th, 2007

Avery started at a home daycare 2 weeks ago. Needless to say, Corey, Avery, and I have stepped onto the daycare sickness merry-go-round. Corey and Avery got sick from me about 3 weeks ago. And now Avery and I are sick again this past week. Actually, the first round wasn’t too bad, but I think babies breed some kind of super kid germs or something. I actually was running a fever and feeling sicker than I’ve been in years this time. Avery is chugging along as hyper and uncomfortable as ever. He’s getting over it now and mostly just coughing.

I went to La Leche League meeting a few weeks ago, and the topic was weaning. I was thinking of weaning, mostly because I’m producing even less now, and I have been so busy at the lab, I’ve been neglecting to pump. While I still hate it, I’ve adjusted to the idea of formula and bottles. My original thought was that I wanted to go to at least a year, but given all my difficulties, I’m amazed I made it this long (8+ months!). In a turn of irony, Avery has stopped accepting all bottles and especially formula. He’s taken an ounce or two at daycare occasionally, but most days he goes without drinking anything all day. The only thing he will do is breastfeed. I’ve started being diligent about pumping at work, but the milk-supply damage is already done. I’m considering going back on domperidone to try and get it up again. We can get him to take liquids (other than breastfeeding) by dropping them in his mouth with a straw. This is very distressing, especially since he needs to gain weight. We went to the doctor and they say he’s fine (not dehydrated) and to make his food really soupy and make sure he gets lots of fats. I’ve been mixing formula or this high milkfat greek yogurt into all his foods. We’ve discovered he REALLY likes yogurt. Even when he seems done with his food (usually a fruit or veg, some baby cereal) he’ll down 2-3 oz of yogurt.

He’s not crawling yet, mostly rolling. He loves being on his stomach now. If he sees something he wants to get to, he just rolls over, assesses whether he’s there or not, and then rolls again. He can travel a good 10-15 ft like this, so we have to be careful now. I’m thinking he’s going to stand up before he ever crawls. He doesn’t like bending in the middle to sit, he can sit really well but prefers not to. He either likes being on his back or stomach, or having you hold him standing up. I sense he’s learning to manipulate us now. He’s started to perfect his whiny cry, and even threw a fit when he saw he was going back in his carseat and didn’t really want to. Unfortunately for us, he’s inherited some personality traits from my side of the family. Even the daycare person said “he’s very strong willed”.




The first cold and sleep

August 10th, 2007

Avery got his first cold. I had a minor cold (sinus pressure, runny nose,coughing) a few weeks back. Corey then caught it from me and was much more miserable, and this past week Avery got it too. He’s been pretty snotty and coughing a lot and just generally fussy. I tried to suction his nose with the bulb thingy so he could breathe better instead of snort, but hes quite the squirmer. Corey and I had to both hold him down to get anywhere near his nose, and then he cried like the end of the world was coming when we successfully got some snot out. I figure he’ll be fine as long as he can breathe. It’s clearing up now.

He got very clingy the last few weeks. He gets upset if you even look like you might be leaving for a second. He also will just lay on my chest and look around now. The other night, he wasn’t interested in sleeping (everytime I put him down I’d hear the whine) and he just snuggled and laid there on my chest, eyes wide open. I let it slide and let him sleep with us since he’s been sick and coughing himself awake a lot. He usually just comes to bed with us after the first waking at night. He was sleeping through the night for months, and suddenly is back to waking up since our trip to california. Originally, I was planning on trying some sleep training to get him to stay asleep all night again soon, but lately I decided that in the interests of milk supply and stranger anxiety, that will wait until once the breastfeeding stops. Besides, I couldn’t do the “cry it out” method, I think its detrimental to the trust your baby has in you. I tend to subscribe to most (but not all) of the philosophies behind attachment parenting so I think he’ll be better off for it, despite what some certain people have said about our “holding him or playing with him too much”.

Anyways, it’s 1am and I should go to sleep before my time is up!




Oh, the yumminess.

July 25th, 2007

Avery has now tried:

His favorites are definitely peaches and oatmeal, pears, and sweet potatoes. No matter how we do it, he does NOT like rice cereal. I can’t blame him, its essentially gruel. I even tried mixing it with banana and sweet potato, but he knew! He makes this hilarious face whenever he gets some rice cereal. Definitely not the “more! more!” whine he does when hes offered peaches with oatmeal.

I also made him some cubes of butternut squash but he hasn’t tried it yet. We’re still introducing mango. I got a cool new immersion blender for making the purees really easily and then just freezing them in a silicon mini muffin pan.