mush

We started Claire on food the other day.  I was reluctant when the doctor first brought it up to me, but I have since opened up to the idea, knowing that it's a positive step in the right direction.  The biggest con (in my eyes) about giving her food is that now her poopy diapers are going to get nasty
:-(

I gave her a little bit of barley cereal the other night, pretty unsuccessfully.  She gagged a few times and mostly just spit the food out.  This is completely normal and to be expected.  Generally it takes time for babies to learn how to eat.  It's important for parents to have a sense of humor and patience when they first start food with their baby since most babies are like Claire, and don't accpet it rigth away.  It takes time.  I only gave her maybe half a dozen spoonfuls, but it was a start. 

Last night, I went to BINGO with my mom - it was my way of getting out of the house to do something recreational without the kids one last time before I start working again - leaving Kevin to deal with the kids alone.  If Claire would accept a bottle, I really wouldn't think twice about leaving Claire with Kevin, but since she's being stubborn I absolutely hate leaving her with anyone - it's just not fair to Claire or the person with her.  BUT, I went out anyway.  Kevin, being the doll that he is, encouraged me to go out and assured me everyone/everything would be fine at home. 

While I was out, Kevin tried to give Claire a bottle, but of curse she wouldn't take it.  At some point he gave her some cereal (in hopes of filling her belly and calming her down, at least a little bit) and I guess it worked.  He said she did really well with food and that she seems to really like it. 

I came home a little after 10pm, expecting to find an unhappy, wide awake, daughter and husband.  Instead I found Claire in her crib and Kevin in his.  I laid down, anticiparting Claire's hunger cries any second, but to my utter disbelief she slept until 4am - which is her normal wake-to-eat time (unless she sleeps thru the night).  I fed her at 4 then she slept until 8. 

Kevin said there was a rough hour or so while I was gone, but nothing he couldn't handle.  I had been feeling really guilty (from the time I agreed to go to Bingo until the time I got home) about the whole thing, but I see now that things are starting to get easier, and will only continue to get easier as the days/weeks/months go by.  Sadly, Claire will be independent before we know it and we will look back on these anti-bottle days and laugh (well, maybe we won't laugh.....). 

More about my work situation to come.

freezer meals

When I was pregnant with Trent I did everything I could think to prepare myself and the house for the arrival of a new baby.  I did what people recommended, I did what the books said, I did what I thought I was supposed to.  One of the things I intended to do but didn't get around to was making freezer meals.  Fortunately, my mother-in-law read my mind and hooked us up.  One random day she gave us a good dozen containers filled with different foods.  After we had the baby other people surprised us with dinners as well (Kevin's coworkers, neighbors, etc).  Whenever my mom visited during the day she would bring us lunch.  We loved it.  We ate the meals we both liked for dinners together, and the meals I didn't like got sent to work with Kevin for lunch.  By the end of it we were sick of lasagna (I think we had 5 lasagnas given to us) but I wouldn't have had it any other way!  It was so nice to not have to worry about cooking every night and not having to settle on take-out or drive-thrus.   

At Christmas time this year I earned a free turkey from the grocery store.  I finally thawed that sucker and cooked it a couple weekends ago.  We had a turkey dinner that night, then the next night I went ahead and made a couple meals specifically for the freezer for post-labor.  I made Shredded BBQ Turkey, and Turkey Pot Pie using this recipe (substituting turkey for chicken and turkey gravy for chicken gravy.  It's fantastic!).  I intended to make turkey enchiladas as well but I didn't have enough soft shells.  Instead, I shredded up the rest of the turkey and froze it as-is.  Already in the freezer (from weeks before) we have some "eh" chicken & dumplings and some shepard's pie.  More recently I was able to add some lasagna and some stuffed peppers filling.  I had originally planned to make a few more meals, but I doubt I will get around to it at this point - and that's ok.  I'm happy with the stash I was able to make.

EDIT:  I was able to add meatloaf last night :-)

the next best thing

I don't know where it's been hiding all my life, but we Kevin recently discovered a little gem called the chocolate covered strawberry blizzard at Dairy Queen.  Not sure what made him get it (he rarely cheats on the classic M&M blizzard) but I was jealous the minute I saw it.  Unfortunately it was too late for me to change my order - I had my own dessert sitting in front of me to eat.  Do I even have to tell you we went back 2 days later and BOTH got chocolate covered strawberry blizzards?!?!  Scrumptious!  Hey, don't judge us.  There's a good chance we'll be back before the week ends.  And yes, I am aware that today is Thursday.  What's a little more cellulite?  It's not like I plan to squeeze into a bikini this summer anyway. 

an odd favorite

For about week and a half after Trent's stomach bug he had very little desire to eat.  It made me sad to see him leave waffle on his tray - a food I know he loves.  Dinnertime was basically a waste of time.  Things have since picked up and are now back to normal.  We continue to give him whatever we happen to be eating (which keeps us eating good, homemade meals, so that's great) and lately he has been going back for seconds.  Stuffed peppers, chicken shells, you name it.   Well, 2 nights ago I made sweet potato turkey meatloaf (along with mac n cheese and mixed vegetables) and Trent TORE IT UP.  He left behind some of the veggies but he couldn't get enough meatloaf.  Last night we gave him leftovers of same meal and once again he ate every bite and then some.  Meanwhile Kevin and I are in the corner chanting "Meat-losse, meat-loaf, double beat-loaf...I HATE meatloaf." (we're setting a great example, aren't we?).  I'm so proud to not have a picky eater (am I jinxing myself by saying that outloud?).  Don't get me wrong, I am all for grilled cheese, hot dogs, and mac n cheese, but I couldn't imagine feeding my kid only those three dishes.  Not only that, it's easier to just give him what we're eating instead of cooking an "adult meal" and a "kid meal".  We'll see how baby #2 turns out.  My luck he/she will be like me - picky.

im hungry and im pregnant. don't mess with me or my food.

I don't care who you are - you have a story that relates even some-what to the story I'm about to tell. I don't care what you say, you've been there! Whether you were PMS'ing, stressed out, sleep deprived, pregnant (that was my excuse) or just really really hungry (my other excuse), you can relate. We all have these irrational moments - at least once.


A couple weeks ago (let's say it was a Tuesday night) I was looking in the pantry for a snack. I spotted a lone coffee cake (yumm). I told myself right then and there that I would ask Kevin not to take that coffee cake the next morning because I already had dibs on it for my Wednesday morning breakfast. That night, I forgot to tell him. The next morning I was still in bed, but awake, while Kevin was showering. I told myself "when Kevin gets out of this shower I'm going to tell him that coffee cake is mine!". Of course I fell back asleep and forgot to mention it when he woke me up to say goodbye. A little while later, after I'm showered and dressed, I go to get my coffee cake (thinking maybe Kevin didn't want it anyway) but it was gone DUM DUM DUMMMMMMM.

I was now hungry, running late, and had "nothing else to eat" at the house. I'm half way to work when Kevin calls me just to lovingly see how my morning was going. This is about when I bit his head off. Our conversation went something like this:


me - how was that coffee cake this morning?


him - i didn't eat it yet, why?


me - because that was supposed to be my breakfast today. now I'm starving and have nothing to eat and have to wait until 12:00 to eat


him - you can stop by my work to get it?


me - *now with a raised voice* and be even later to work? I can't do that. I'm just going to STARVE!


him - but I didn't eat it yet. my work is on your way


me - it's not on my way! I don't have time for that.


him - stop and get something to eat then


me - i don't have any money



Tears were rolling down my face at this point. That's right - I'm crying over a coffee cake.

the conversation didn't last very much longer, but you get the gist. Once I got to work I walked over to Dunkin and get myself a muffin.


Of course I tried to apologize to Kevin a couple times throughout the day, but I had obviously annoyed him.

Later that day we're eating dinner and Kevin tells me "so, you know when you were yelling at me this morning about the coffee cake? Well, Danny was standing right there and heard every word. When we hung up he asked me why you were so upset. I had to tell him it was because you were pregnant and wanted a coffee cake. He couldn't believe any one person would get that worked up over a coffee cake". I'M MORTIFIED!!! I asked Kevin why he didn't tell me someone was standing right there, but I guess that's what I get.

It get's better. When Kevin finally ate the coffee cake at lunch time, Danny asked him if he wanted him to take a picture of Kevin eating it and send it to me via text message. Kevin graciously declined. Clearly Danny has never dealt with a hungry pregnant lady before - and Kevin has.



I'm lucky to have such a wonderful, understanding, and forgiving husband. He later stopped by the grocery store to get a few necessities and also picked up 2 boxes of coffee cakes.

donating the gift of life

I'm talking about donating umbilical cord blood.


Most people know that when you have a baby you have the ability to store your baby's cord blood in a private bank. You do this so that if your child gets sick you can access the cord blood in hopes that the blood would help save your child's life (god forbid). Storing your childs cord blood is not cheap, however. There is an initial enrollment fee, then a yearly storage fee. I heard from a source or two that the enrollment fee alone is thousands of dollars. The yearly fee is more reasonable (from what I understand), costing something like a few hundred each year - but obviously I don't know exact prices.

Something that I believe is more recent and growing in popularity, is public umbilical cord blood banks. This option is totally free, but the blood is not being stored for you. Essentially you are donating it in hopes that your childs cord blood will help save another childs life. If it turns out that your child needs his/her own cord blood, and if on the off chance the bank still has it, you have the ability to use it for yourself (whether it's free or not is unclear to me). If the bank no longer has your child's cord blood they will help you find the closest matching unit (again, whether it's free or not is unknown to me, but i'm assuming it is not free).


When we got pregnant with Trent we had every intention of donating his cord blood. The way we looked at it was: Why Not? Well, unfortunately, we didn't know there was a registration process that was to be done mid-way (ish) through the pregnancy. We were literally in the delivery room - I was being stitched up - the placenta, etc was sitting in a bowl on a table next to the doctor - and we said "we'd like to donate that". The nurse then asked if we went thru the proper procedure for doing so - to which we responded with, "there's a procedure?". The nurse then informed us that all that good stuff would have to be thrown away. Tossed in the trash!!! I was so disappointed! We had the opportunity to make a difference in someone's life, but there is sat, in all it's glory, just waiting to be thrown away.


This time around we staying on top of my placenta (so to speak) and all of it's associated parts. Today I am going to pre-register with The Brady Kohn Foundation - a local cord bank that offers public and private banking- and I am very excited about it. Their motto is "Give life. Twice".


Another option I have concerning my afterbirth is to bring it all home with me, cook it, and eat it. Had you talked to me about this a year ago I would have thrown up in your face. I have since learned more about the benefits and reasons why people do this. I learned, most specifically, about capsulising the placenta - I won't get too detailed, but basically you cook it, grind it up, then fill little capsules with the it. You then take however many capsules you'd like every day - just like you would do with a vitamin. This is the easiest way for most women to eat it....understandably. You can only imagine what it would taste like if you sat down with your placenta on your plate and you tried to go at it like it was a steak. Maybe throw a little A1 on the side of your plate.

Anyway, back to the benefits of eating your placenta: it's full of nutrients that help mom recover from childbirth and stay healthy. It's also said to help with milk production.

Would I ever actually do this? Heck no. It's not for me. I'd much rather donate my goods. But I will no longer judge those people who decide to eat it. Yes, it makes me a cringe a little just typing the words "eat" and "placenta" in the same sentence, but once you break it all down and understand the reasons behind it, it's really not as barbaric as one might think. It's actually very beneficial and healthy (if handled properly). Who am I to judge?

As I mentioned above, I am going to pre-register today. In a few days/weeks I will receive a health questionnaire to fill out and mail back. Once they review it they will send me a kit. I will have to remember to take this kit with me to the hospital when I go into labor. The nurses will handle it from there.

~if you will be delivering at St. Francis or Christiana Hospital, please look into this, and if it seems like something you could get on board with, spread the word! If you are delivering someplace else, look into the local resources you have. The Brady Kohn website has a link that should help. click here.

Please share any stories, experiences, or thoughts you may have on this topic. I am just starting to learn about this entire procedure so I would love to hear what you have to say.

our halloween costumes 2009

I was Mrs Potato head, with additional face party, and Kevin was a centaur (half man, half horse). More pictures and more details about our Halloween weekend to come!

Here's one of us with Trent before we left the house for a party Friday night

Ok, one more - the cake I made. I also made some test tube shots which I heard were pretty good. Maybe NEXT Halloween I will be able to drink alcohol (couldn't drink in 2008. couldn't drink this year). But back to the cake - it was a bit of a Frankenstein cake really....I had to piece the top half together then plop a ton of icing on the top and TRY to make it presentable. I baked it Thursday night for a Friday night party and I honestly didn't think it was going to make it thru the night. It was starting to fall apart almost immediately. Somehow, it stayed it one piece (for the most part). It still didn't look all too great, but I put way too much effort into this cake to leave it home. So I took it and encouraged some of the guests at the party to indulge. I like to think I almost convinced a vegan to cheat and have some, but she wasn't falling for it. In the end though, I got very positive responses (well, positive remarks from those who like a whole lot of chocolate). It's a "black magic" cake with chocolate ganache filling and chocolate icing that I tried to dye black. yummmmm.

random updates

I feel like I haven't been blogging much at all lately. To be perfectly honest with you, I do most of my blogging while im at work and i've been in a big work-funk lately, so I just haven't had the motivation to sit and write about the things and people I love. Sorry!

I have, however, been actively trying to get a good video clip to post on my blog. Trent is really into giving High 5's right now and I want to share that with everyone, but every time i get the camera out, Trents mission changes from giving high-fives to getting the camera in his possession. He's actually been doing high-fives for a while now. Kevin started teaching him several months ago. It's so cute!

Trent still has only 4 teeth - but I really think he's about to cut his 5th (but i've been saying that for a couple months now, so....)

He has mastered the art of pulling himself up, and he has even dared to let go a couple times. Standing unassisted is very very rare and it never lasts longer than a second (in fact, Kevin has yet to witness it).

Trent is really into "walking" too - the kind of walking where you hold his hands and walk along with him.

He is obsessed with food!!!! We used to be able to give him a bottle while Kevin and I ate our dinner. If it wasn't time for a bottle we could feed him a jar of food while the other parent ate real food. Now, if Trent sees our food, he wants it. Because of this we have started to remove any and all jarred food from his diet all together. I'm glad that phase is over.

We have also started to wean him from formula. We've been adding one ounce of cows milk to his bottles each day. He will be on 100% cows milk by the end of this weekend. We are EXTREMELY glad the formula phase is almost over (it's inconvenient, it stinks, its messy)!! And even more thankful that he appears to have no milk allergies (or any food allergies for that matter).

I was going to blog about how he now eats the bubbles in his bath - but he only did it during the one bath a couple weeks ago. It was so cute, he kept gathering more bubbles on his hand and shoving them in his mouth, then he'd have a santa-like beard & mustache. very cute.

I'm sure there are other updates that I'm just not thinking about, but thats everything that came to mind!

Don't forget that you can ask me any questions you may have. Sometimes it's hard for me to come up with new topics on my own :-)

spaghetti dinner

carrots and apples, mmm mmm good

Up until recently Trent was not a big food guy. He could eat it, he could leave it, it was whatever. People always joked that we were giving him Big Macs when nobody was looking, but Kevin and I knew that Trent gained his weight from milk (and it's in his genes).

I guess it was just a couple weeks ago when we noticed a huge change. Now he throws a fit whenever he sees food. He (thinks he) wants it. And he (thinks he) wants it all! He would eat an entire box of Cheerios if we let him - and he would double fist his way through the entire box (which gives me the idea to video tape him with his cheerios). On the contrary, when we offer him veggie purees and chicken purees, he refuses to eat them half the time. It's actually pretty frustrating because he's obviously hungry but he doesn't want/like what we're offering him. He would devour fruit if we gave it to him, but he gets that for lunch everyday and we don't want to over do it. We want him eating protein, meats, and veggies on top of fruit.

Because of his near-refusal to eat veggies, and his complete refusal to eat my chicken, i decided to buy some jarred food and see how he does. I reluctantly bought some chicken & apples (reluctant because he wouldn't eat my chicken - even when i mixed it with fruits or veggies), some turkey & veggies, and a couple others. We figure he needs protein, and we don't care if he gets it from homemade food or jarred. We're just glad he's actually eating something other than fruits. So far he's doing really well with it. He's been eating up to 4 ounces at a time (Doctor said it would be normal if he ate as much as 8 ounces per meal), so we're happy.

We also give him bits of whatever we're eating for dinner so he can play with different textures and tastes.

The plan is for me to continue to make his fruit purees (because I enjoy it) for breakfast, and he will be getting jarred veggies and meats for lunch and dinner.

Did I mention that Maggie LOVES that Trent gets to manhandle some of his own food now?

blueberry diapers

not only do blueberries stain the face going in - but they stain the skin on their way out too.

I'm not kidding.

luckily there was no runny poop/diarrhea

baby led weaning (BLW)

...it's an interesting take on giving a baby solid foods. My understanding is that with BLW you basically skip pureed foods and spoon-feeding all together. Instead, when your baby is 6 months old you start introducing them to fingers foods. These fingers food would basically be all the foods you would give them in puree form, except they are not pureed. If you aren't giving them a naturally soft food (banana) you'd want to cook the food until it is soft enough for a baby to mash in its gums. The idea is that your baby will gum away at the food and naturally break off the right sized pieces. The purpose of BLW is to let the baby lead the way in determining how much they want to eat, what they want to eat, and when they want to eat (but its not like the baby can go into the kitchen and cook its own food, but whatever). This goes with the belief that babies should not be on a set schedule as far as feeding is concerned.



I'm familiar with this concept. Breastfed babies do not have a set feeding schedule. We have always been told to "feed on demand", meaning whenever the baby is hungry, it eats. I shouldn't make the baby wait another hour to nurse just because some chart says a baby this age should be eating every x hours. On the flip side, I shouldn't feed baby if he doesn't appear to be hungry.



I guess the followers of BLW believe us spoon-feeders are setting a schedule for our babies when we give them pureed food? They think we force them eat the food since we're the one with the spoon in our hand? I don't know. I only did a little research on the topic so it's still pretty unclear to me.



As with everything else, each parent and child needs to figure out what works for them and run with it. Right now we're enjoying the spoon-feeding phase. I personally would not have been comfortable giving my 6 month old a chunk of banana.



I would, however, like to start introducing finger foods soon. He loves his puffs, and obviously gets the idea of putting food in his mouth himself. I think Trent would like more freedom to feed himself at this point. And I know Maggie would LOVE it. She already hounds him for his Puffs (even though they are pretty bland).

let's cook together

I'm not sure why, but I started a second blog. It will be all food related. Here's the link cookingwithbarbie.blogspot.com/
I will also put the link to the left to make it easily accessible.

If you're wondering how I find time to blog so often, it's because I do majority of my blogging at work - during my breaks, of course ~wink wink~

fail followed by success

We gave Trent chicken for the first time Friday night - FAIL. It's the first food Trent clearly does not like! We ended up mixing it with a little sweet potato just to get him to eat some, but he wasn't fooled. We're going to give him a few weeks then try again.



Blueberries, on the contrary, were a huge success (first time = tonight). A word to the wise: blueberries are best if given on bath night
;-)

puffs

Gave Trent some pear puree with cinnamon. He seemed to really enjoy it....as did I. Afterwards I got the container of Puffs out. We gave him a couple Puffs a couple months ago but he had no idea what to do with them. He was succesful this time. Once the video ended we gave him more and he ate those too.

spice it up

One of the perks of making Trent's baby food is that I can make combinations (banana-apple, etc) and I can add spices!! Tonight I'm going to make him pear puree with a touch of cinnamon. yum

#48

...from my 101 list

48. make homemade chocolate filled croissants (like i had in Paris)

Well, they didn't turn out exactly like the ones in Paris. In fact, they don't look a thing like croissants. They aren't the slightest bit flaky, and they aren't very buttery (which is odd considering just how much butter i used). I got the recipes from allrecipes.com (a website i use all the time) and I borrowed Alicia's mixer to make the dough. The can of pineapples shown in the picture was used as a makeshift rolling pin. The final product was good....not quite worth the 4-ish hours it took to make them, but good. I'm definitely crossing this item off my list.

solids

As I've said before, Trent gets 1 meal (something other than breast milk) a day, but not everyday. While in OBX Kevin and i started giving trent 2 "meals" a day. We did 1 veggie and 1 fruit each day and Trent was fine with it. Hannah ended up with some sweet potato in her hair one day, but thats neither here no there. Well, we were going strong until the end of the week when we ran out of produce. We were too lazy to buy more, so Trent was back to no solids at all for several days-which he didn't seem to mind at all.

We originally planned to start sending one meal a day to daycare starting when we returned from vacation. Well, Monday rolled around and Trent went to daycare with 3 bottles and no food. big surprise there. We're just in no rush....obviously, lol

Well, Today i sent food to daycare! I sent 1 serving of avocado for today and 1 for tomorrow. Linda (daycare provider) was surprised to learn that Trent isn't already on a solid 2 meals already (given his size she assumed we were giving him breakfast and dinner already). The plan is for Linda to give Trent his homemade food mid-morning everyday - until I start feeding him breakfast, at which point she will push her meal back to more of a lunch. Meanwhile we will continue to give Trent his dinner meal in the evenings. I have no idea when I will start feeding Trent breakfast but I have a feeling it won't be anytime soon.

Today was also my first time using those nifty food containers I bought a while back!

fruit

Well, we gave Trent fruit for the first time last night. I would have been fine giving him vegetables only for a little while longer, but the veggies he hasn't had yet aren't recommended for babies his age. Broccoli and cauliflower (among others) are known to give babies gas and can be harder to digest, so they recommend waiting until at least 8 months for those. Other vegetables, like corn, are high allergen foods, so the longer you wait the better. We decided to start Trent's journey to fruitsville with pears. Who doesn't love pear?!?! I wish I took pictures or video of Trent eating it because after each bite he would pucker his lips and make a sour face. It was much sweeter than he was used to...but he'd open his mouth wide for the next bite, so he must not have minded it!

I'll have to get the camera out tonight and post pictures/video soon!

The worst part about him eating any food is his poop. I'm used to this semi-runny, easy to clean, not-too-stinky poop. This morning I changed a very *different* (for lack of better word) diaper. I want to say it was a bad diaper, but I know better. I know it's going to get worse with time, so I wont say it was a bad diaper; I'll just say it was stinkier than before and, well.....the consistency has changed a little ::insert sad face here::

food containers

As mentioned previously, we are making Trent's baby food as opposed to buying jarred food. Right now Trent only gets 1 meal a day (if at all), and that's at home around dinner time. Before long Trent will be eating several meals a day - which means he will be eating while at daycare, as well as at home. I wasn't sure if I would send homemade food to daycare or not - I thought it would be an inconvenience to the caregiver to have to prepare the homemade stuff. Of course I would give it to her already pureed, but she'd have to possibly thaw it and/or warm it up. A few weeks ago I brought it up to her and she said she has absolutely no problem with me sending her the homemade stuff. She assured me that it's no inconvenience at all! Ever since she told me that I've been wondering how I will send the food to her. As in, what kind of containers will I use. Right now I have ice cube trays that I freeze the food in, but I don't want to send that to her. My preference would be to fill individual containers with a feedings worth of food and give her a couple days worth at a time. So, I did a little browsing on the internet and found a few different options. Luckily each option had "user reviews" so I was able to get opinions from people who have actually used the products. It really wasn't a hard decision once I read the reviews. The one product had many negative remarks while the other basically got 5 stars across the board!


Here are the 5 star containers (picture to left)....I just ordered them and I'm very excited about it! These jars are BPA free, so they are perfectly safe for Trent. I can freeze them, microwave them, dishwash them, stack them...and the best part of all is that the lids screw on as opposed to snapping shut. This means there is less risk of freezer burn or spillage, and the food will stay fresher longer. I already have a dozen glass jars at home, so I'm sure between the 2 sets I will have plenty.


If anyone is interested, I got them from One Step Ahead. They seem to have some really great stuff on their site/catalog. A website I reference often for homemade baby food tips, etc is Wholesome Baby Food. The link is to the right of my blog under "pregnancy and baby links". Their site has a whole section dedicated to sending homemade baby food to daycare/babysitter.