Food!

Last week at the baby’s appointment her doctor said we could start giving her solids like oatmeal and fruit/veggie purees. I was super excited about this because I’ve been looking forward to exposing her to foods! I love food, hope to attend culinary school some day, and I was reeeally excited about getting Caroline interested in food too.

The first attempt, oatmeal, went rather as you might expect it: messy! In fact, after the first mouthful, she looked at me and burst into tears.

Not a whole lot made it down that first attempt, naturally. I tried again the next day, but she still wasn’t particularly interested. She also still has a pretty strong tongue thrust reflex which naturally makes it a little more difficult to finagle a spoonful in there.

After giving it a couple days, I tried some apple juice, since the doctor suggested using it as a sweetener when I pureed fruits. He also said to try everything by itself first and to wait a few days so that if there are any allergies, we can nail it down to the right food. Anyway, I gave her the apple juice bottle and she immediately looked at me like “just what the hell do you think you’re trying to give me here?”

It took a bit of persuading, but she did eventually drink 2 ounces.

)

We tried pureed banana after that and she gobbled it up. She’s getting much better at opening her mouth wide enough for the spoon and is keeping most of it in her mouth. Today she had two servings of oatmeal with a little apple juice stirred in for some more taste and she snarfed it! Later today I’m going to do some apple puree (I used this as an excuse to finally buy a food processor and snagged a Ninja choppy thing last week, wahoo) and probably soon will try something like green beans or peas.

Now we’re working on nailing down the right amount of food for her. The suggested serving size on the oatmeal is for a much bigger child, so I can’t really go off that yet. I’m working on cutting out her lunchtime bottle and giving her juice, oatmeal and a fruit or veggie instead. I think some oatmeal at dinnertime is in the works too. Maybe that will keep her full through the night and I can soon start to wean her off her midnight bottle!

Snow Day

To start off with, I am thinking about the folks down in the Atlanta/Birmingham area and their winter woes right about now. I am pretty stunned at all the video and pictures I am seeing and I can’t stop thinking about the stories of parents trapped for hours with infants in the car and no way to feed them. Ugh, it just gives me the shivers. Pretty sure I will be packing up an emergency kit with water and extra formula in the back of my car post-haste!

As it happens, we are also in the middle of wintry weather here, but thankfully we are used to this kind of stuff and are prepared! Unfortunately, the traction control system seems to have gone out on Cameron’s car this morning while we were pushing it out of the driveway (stupid ice!), so for the time being we are a one-car family. I’m hoping the problem is related to ice or rocks stuck up in the wheel shaft, but I guess we’ll have to see what happens when the snow melts down enough to get some traction on bare pavement. Unfortunately I don’t think that will be happening any time soon, since we are apparently in for another round of snow starting tonight that some reports are saying could bring us 16 inches or more. I’m never one to complain about the snow because we really need the moisture, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t ready for spring so I can get the baby out of the house once in a while. (Also ready for spring so that we can get out of wind season! Yesterday we had 50+mph gusts and it was just wretched. When I was trying to put groceries in my car last night the wind grabbed the car door and pulled it right out of my hand and now I have a horrible pulled muscle in my back. No thank you!)

Anyway, the other day we got about 7 inches (we were only predicted 2-4, murr) and the next day it was warm enough (relatively speaking of course) to bundle up the Bean and take her out for her first time in the snow! As you can see, she was a little less than thrilled.

It was a little too close to nap time I think so she wasn’t really having it. We put her down for a nap and tried again a little later that afternoon. She tolerated it a bit better and she even got to go on her first sled ride!

As you can see, she was so excited. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt of only being 3 months old and hope that next winter she might be a little more interested.

In any case, we are just waiting for this next round of snow to hit. I have a chicken in the slow cooker and don’t have to be at rehearsal for the rest of the week so I am happy to sit tight and watch the snow from the inside. I am crossing my fingers that the roads will be okay by Sunday so that we can get to my mom’s for Superbowl Sunday (WOO BRONCOS!!!), otherwise I will be one slightly unhappy camper.

By the way, this little girl is 3 months old next week! When did this happen??