Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Give the boy his soy


Yes, spencer has been eating...boy has he been eating.

After getting over a bout of the stomach bug, he has been an eating machine. Now, he can eat Mac and Cheese (in honor of his dad), carrots, and Peaches, and soon he will be eating chicken and yogurt...i just have to decide which to do first!

Here's my latest Stupid Mom of the Century Move:
I have this internal aversion to Spencer drinking soy formula and am on a constant quest to find SOMETHING else he can drink. So this weekend I wasted $15 trying out a lactose-free, milk-based formula-only to have him throw up on his teacher monday (even though i had already stopped giving it to him). NOTE TO SELF: Give the boy his soy!

Due to the fact that so many of the fruits and veggies that I started Spencer on have gone out of season, i am depending more on canned baby food. No more avocados, and even pears are looking all bruised up! And I am kind of tired of cooking big batches of foods as well, but this weekend i did try green peas again and some carrots. Just can't seem to get the right amount of water to steam those suckers!

In other news, Spencer is on the edge of crawling. Any day, I think he is going to come home from daycare and just take off, but it hasn't happened yet! and, am i really ready for it? Right now, he stays put really well (other that wiggling backwards and getting frustrated). soon I won't be able to let him out of my sight for a second-YIKES!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

My boy can eat!

Spencer is an eating machine! Last night and tonight, he chowed down on a 3 course meal of avocados, sweet potatoes, and oatemal! He loves eating. He's not sure about avocados-he kind of screws up his face like it is sour or he doesn't like the texture, but he will still eat it. I think it just isn't as good as sweet potatoes.

I tried my hand at making sweet potatoes for the first time this week! Here is what I did:

1 lb. of sweet potatoes,
peel them,
cube them,
steamed them for about 10-12 minutes.

Then, I used an immersion blender to blend them and added a little of the steaming water to thin it out (but not completely). when I go to fix the sweet potatoes, I add about 1/2 oz milk to make it thinner and warm it up in the microwave for about 7-10 seconds (be sure to stir well afterwards to get out any hot spots).

I think it will make about 7 2-oz. portions (and only cost about $1.00).
That is a pretty good savings over buying 2 2-oz. containers for $1.00.

I froze them in ice cube trays (saving the first two meals out). This morning, I took them out of the trays and put two cubes each in old gerber food containers that I had the day care save for me. I put them back in the deep freeze, and we will see if they are air tight enough to keep out freezer burn for a few days. If spencer eats 2 containers a day, the total amount I made will last for 3-4 days.

To the avocados, I take about half and blend it, then add about 1/2 oz. milk. He can eat almost 1/2 an avocado per meal, and finish off the rest for breakfast (since it isn't his favorite), so the 3 avocados I bought for $2.00 should last about 4-5 days. Not bad!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Slow down!

spencer's body yelled, "slow down!!!" he could only handle SO MUCH sweet potatoes! on vacation, he insisted he wanted to eat our food, our drinks, whatever we had really. So, we decided to bring his own food. However, it kind of stopped him up and we had to slloooww down!
This morning, with the help of just a little oatmeal, his body finally got in gear...all over the place! Already running late, i grab the little man out of his exersaucer and get a whiff of something...then, i unbuckle his pants to find "something" is everywhere! Needless to say, it took many wipes, a few minutes of insanity, and probably a stinky mess in the bathroom, but he is ready for more food, I think! He just had to make some room!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Vacation eating

It is kind of hard to train a baby to eat while on vacation. i don't recommend it! but spencer handled it well, like he does so many things. He couldn't quite hold it together while we were enjoying our meals at resturaunts in front of him, so we decided to start bringing food for him. Unfortunatly, that meant that mommy didn't get to eat much of her food hot, but that's the sacrifice we make, i suppose!

Spencer did get started on sweet potatoes on our vacation. i was unsure if it was a good idea, and of course, we didn't have fresh, but we made do. And boy does ho love him some sweet potatoes! By day 2, he could polish off a whole gerber container (2 oz i think) in no time flat...and eat some oatmeal on top of that!

However, I think we might have overdone it and now his tummy isn't running all that smoothly, but hopefully we will get it all straightened out!

It does look like we are at about the end of the breastfeeding though, as I don't seem able to make enough for him these days. He is constantly hungry, even with all the solids he is eating, so i think we are going to switch to formula at least during the day, to see how it all works. My goal was to make it to 6 months, and we are just 2 weeks away, so i think that is pretty close!

Now we just have to decide if all the rumors about soy formula are true and see if he might want to switch to milk based formula...

Sweet Potato

Click to play this Smilebox scrapbook: Sweet Potato
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Vacation!

Click to play this Smilebox slideshow: Our spring break vacation
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Monday, March 2, 2009

And now for something completely different...

OK, this has nothing to do with Spencer, or food, or Tyler, nor do I even know this pup, but this is stinking funny!

Enjoy!

Sunday, March 1, 2009

No food this weekend

This weekend, Spencer and I both had (different) illnesses, and spencer decided he needed to be on a liquid diet! I bought bananas to try, but it will probably have to wait a few days until his stomach is back up to snuff.

I have a sinus infection of sorts and felt pretty puny all weekend, but got a Z-pack and hope to be on my feet again by Tuesday. Hopefully spencer will feel good enough to go to school tomorrow and let me get some rest; otherwise, i will just spend the day tending to him (which is fine if he needs me, but might make my recovery delayed).

This next weekend, we will get to try eating away from home as we take a 2 night/3 day trip to Jefferson, TX and Caddo lake. hopefully we will all be muchly better and ready for some fun on the steamboat!

Thursday, February 26, 2009

What, Too tired to eat?

This week, the little man has suddenly decided that he is too tired and cranky to eat at night! Last night, all he wanted was milk, but once he had his share of that, he was willing to eat a little cereal. Avocados were ok, but not exactly a hit.

This morning, he didn't want much of anything to do with anything. I don't know if he is just not a fan of the avocados or if he is just still kind of weak from his illness last week.

Maybe i will give him the night off of avocados and just go back to cereal and see how he reacts!

Why are babies so hard to understand-almost harder than men!

oh, and he seems as interested in cups of water as coke, so maybe he just thinks he wants to drink from a "big boy" cup! maybe we will try to sippy cup sometime soon!

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Not yet!

One thing spencer is craving, and really, who can blame him, is Diet Coke/Dr. Pepper. He sees his mom and dad partake, and truly thinks he needs some. Can you imagine-a 5 month old hopped up on Diet Coke! of course, i guess he gets some caffeine from me, but still...yikes!

Avocados are your friend!

So, here is the timeline so far. We really aren't too far along into this whole new world of real food, but there are a few highlights:

Birth-3 Months-Exclusive breastmilk

3 months-3 1/2 months-my hungry caterpillar need more than i could give, so we had to supplement breastmilk with formula. we varied between soy and milk formula before we finally settled with Good Start Soy Formula at 4 months. (that whole story is for another day).

3 1/2 months to 4 1/2 months-in an effort to get some sleep (unsuccessful for a while), we started Spencer on rice cereal. At first, he ate just a few bites, but soon discovered it was quite tasty. We began giving him 3 oz of formula mixed with hot tap water and rice cereal around 8:00 PM every night to try to fill him up! Soon, he started waking up only once a night (PTL)!

4 1/2-5 months-added whole grain oatmeal; spencer doesn't like it better or worse, but it makes for a fun change. sometimes we mix, but mostly just have one or the other. also, during this time, i purchased a Boon spoon. you can put the cereal into the handle of the spoon and squeeze it out as needed. Very handy and makes feeding much simpler!

I was determined to wait until Spencer was at least 5 months old before beginning "real" food. So, the day he turned 5 months was a monumental day in our house! Our boy was growing up, and it was exciting!

5 months-we started with AVOCADOS! and BREAKFAST!
Here is my
Beginner Avocado Recipe
1/2 avocado
+ 2 oz formula
=super creamy and very edible baby guacomole!
Now, 1/2 an avocado is much more than a little guy can eat at first, but i have found that, when pureed with formula it lasts at least from morning to night (and probably from evening to morning). So, 1/2 an avocado can make about 3 meals for spencer. We asked the daycare to save the other kid's plastic baby food containers, and they work great! We can make about 3 servings from 1/2 an avocado-so the plan is to make it through breakfast, dinner (with some cereal) and breakfast again-not a bad deal for about $.67! I am sure that over time he will want to eat more, but for now, this seems to work.
Now for his REACTION-he is intrigued by the green goo, but still favors the cereal. He doesn't seem to want to eat quite as much when we add the avocado, but I don't know if it is because the avocado fills him up, or because he is not a fan. we have been eating avocados since sunday (it is wednesday) so we will see!

Next stop-sweet potatoes. haven't decided if we should microwave, steam, or bake. We will see what happens next Sunday!

Wow, this is kind of a boring post, but it is a catch-up post. hopefully future posts will be shorter and more humorous!

Why, oh Why!

As I searched for how to start the process of introducing my little one, Spencer, to baby food, i discovered that there is not much out there in the way of a step by step introduction to food. so, i decided that i would create a step-by-step guide of my own journey to show others how i did it. now, i understand that every baby is different and every parent is different, so this is just how i did it (or am doing it), but I hope you understand. That being said, here are some of my goals and personal objectives:
1) I understand breastfeeding is the most important for babies for the 1st year. I am planning on breastfeeding through 6 months, then switching exclusively to formula (along with real food).
2) In an effort to be 1-economical and 2-healthy, i am going to try my hand at making my own baby food!! we will see how it goes throughout this process.

Given those goals, here is what i hope this blog to be:
1) a timeline of Spencer's eating (and possibly other) milestones
2) recipes for the baby food items spencer likes
3) encouragement for other moms who need to know that in the end, it will all work out!

since i have already started some solids, i will take the next post to catch you up to date! Of course, I think you need a picture to see just how adorable my little one really is:







And of course, you want to know who I am :

Hopefully you will stop by often!