Xmas eats, Pt 2

you! loyal subject! fetch more fud!

Do you like my hat? We all wore them while we ate our dinner.  I got lots of new things (duplo, wheelybug, wooden activity cube, animal socks, my first converse like mama and dada) and we wore hats for dinner.  It was a funny day, but I didn’t let that get in the way of my eating.  Everyone went ahead and ate without me first, I had to have a sleep I was so tired from playing and entertaining my Oma, Opa, Uncle Peter & Auntie Rachel and the neighbours.  Then when they ate their dessert (I don’t know what it was but I bet it wasn’t as nice as yogurt) I ate my dinner.   Oma put aside food for me because otherwise they might eat it all and I’d have none.  I had turkey and I had parnsips, and mashed potato and carrots.  Do you see my fork in the photo? I like eating from that, but mama and dada have to put thing on it first.

The next day we went to my Auntie Lisa’s house.  That’s the loud house.  Or at least it is when me and all my cousins are there.  We all ate another big dinner and I saw mama drink lots of bubbly stuff but I just had my water.  She’s allowed now because I have a bottle when I go to bed.  My little cousin Ross who’s only just started eating ate a big lump of parsnip like I would.  He must have seen me.  My dada tried to take it from him after he had it in his mouth for ages.  He wasn’t happy about that.  He likes broccoli too.  I’m going to show him how it’s done.

– Dom

consumption management 101 – making improvements

I was away most of last week, and have found myself getting a bit irritated when I don’t manage Dominic’s food intake well.  Let me rephrase – baby led weaning isn’t really about management, but presenting of opportunities and I feel that I haven’t been offering him the opportunity to eat at the right time always.  We’re in the middle of weaning from breast to bottle, and have settled into a rough routine of 2 breastfeeds & 2 bottlefeeds most days (sometimes more).  Seeing as we don’t have much of a fixed routine for anything feeding can be a bit haphazard – milk feeds run late, then he’s not hungry for solids, then I offer lunch late. While we were away, we might have been out and about in the car, and while me and my mum ate lunch, he was only due a bottle. Or we’re not organised enough in the evening and I end up making do for his dinner and we don’t all eat together. Making do is usually natural yogurt and or a fruit pot.  I think this would be fine if we were doing a good structured ‘protein lunch’, but I’ll be conscious he might only have had a couple of nibbles on a bit of cheese or toast at lunchtime. There’s the added pressure then, when you’re trying to prove something to someone (that blw is a good idea) and you can’t seem to get him to eat at all.  Repeat to self – he’s not eating up for me, he’s eating for him.

So this weekend, I resolved to do better. The freezer is our best friend. I made my very first lasagne, ever. People often find it odd that a vegetarian doesn’t make veggie lasagna’s often, but for years it was about the only thing on offer in restaurants. (Now its wild mushroom risottos & goats cheese tartlets…don’t get me started) A few weeks ago I made lentil bolognaise and had frozen enough to make up the lasagna. This is the recipe I used, but I added a layer of passata into the mix also. I’m not sure how authentic that is, but I love the sweet tang of tomato, and it was a nice contrast to the bechamel. I didn’t realise how easy bechamel is to make, now I can’t believe you can even buy a jar of the white stuff. In the interests of full disclosure, Mark did spoonfeed some of it to him for lunch as I’d been a bit worried about Dom’s weight gain. (This happens sporadically and after a good days eating, sense has kicked in) After a few spoon swooshes and aeroplane noises, the mouth started to clamp shut.  He won’t put up with that for long – he’ll watch your act for a bit, but as the spoon comes close he bats it away or wants to grab it himself.  But we weren’t in any hurry, so I just sighed and dumped the rest of the food out onto the tablecloth, kinda expecting it to hit the floor momentarily. But in it went – mushy strips of pasta coated in sticky sauces and lentils.

On a roll, and after planting snowdrops & crocuses (croci?) and baking banana bread (yes! really!), I decided to try soup for the first time today.  I make soup relatively often, but having had a reasonably good summer, this was the first batch in a while.  While I can’t automatically turn to the Annabel Karmel recipes,  I have a few reliable sites I look at for ideas (links on left) and My Daddy Cooks is always good for a laugh and for inspiration.  I’d thought of soup for him before, but just wasn’t sure how to get it into him – I like to avoid doing too many pre-loaded spoons.  This soup video had me foraging in the fridge, and I ended up with carrot & parsnip soup with potatoes for bulk.  I needed it to be thick to have any chance of it going into Dom’s mouth.   I used big hunks of brown bread, so they’d hold together nicely when soup-sodden.

The wee fella was having a bit of a meltdown by the time the whole lot was ready and cool enough for him.  He was only up a while from a nap, and he’s quite predictable compared to a couple of months ago in terms of his milk feeds.  Not even the sight of the 2 cats playing with a feather in the back yard could quiet him.  I can only come to the conclusion that he may have finally made the link between hunger & solids – if this is the case then great (but I won’t get away with skipping meals anymore!)   I wish I could capture the face he makes when he tries something new.  His whole face screws up like he’s eating lemons, and he’s really unsure and then just when you think you’re going to get a spit out, it’s like: hang on, this is the weirdest taste/texture ever, but wait!  I LIKE it. And in he tucks.

Given the gusto with which he tackled his soupy dippers, I’m guessing he’s into the whole soup thing.  Good thing too, there’a about 5 cups of it going in that blessed freezer tonight.

So I’ll leave you with this thought – every joyful moment, every new meal Dominic gobbles up,  is marred only by the thought of the clean up afterward. Curses… I wonder can you train cats like house-elves?

– Jill

back to school weather

Mama is very happy this week.  She is going to bootcamp as much as possible and I like that because I get to play with my friends, especially Rían.  But sometimes when we’re out playing on our rugs, all my friends move away from me.  I don’t know how they do it, sometimes I fall over onto my front when I’m sitting up and I kick my leggies but I can’t move and I screech til Mama picks me up. Mama calls it crawling, and keeps telling everyone that my playroom is a death trap and all the things she’ll have to fix up when I can do it.  Except she keeps calling it the living room, I’ll have to correct her when I can talk. That’s a long way off.

Anyway the lovely sunny days are great for eating outside.  I can eat anywhere, just put me in a good chair and give me one of my special bowls and away I go.  This was me a couple of weeks ago.  I ignored the sun and the cats and everything while I had a good look at my parsnip.  And then I ate it up.

– Dom

public display of ingestion

i had my first big fud challenge at the weekend. me and mama and dada went to oma and opa’s house. they’re dada’s parents. and auntie rachel and phil were there and uncle peter and jenny too.  so there was a big table in the kitchen. it was bigger than normal because opa magicked it bigger, he’s very good at things like that.  i sat at the corner in my new chair between mama & dada.

on our way to oma & opa’s we stopped in ikea.  oma & opa and mammo have highchairs for me already, but you have to shove towels around me to sit up, and i’m still all slippy and slumpy, and i won’t eat well and i’m grumpy when i’m in them.  so i got 2 new chairs for their houses.  my parents are very happy with them even though they’ve a very fancy stokke tripp trapp for me at home, mama says its her very 2nd favouritist high chair.

so there i was with all the people looking at me in a place i’m not used to eating in, in a new chair – mama didn’t think i’d really eat much but i did!  Oma is very excited by BLW so she had put aside some food for me specially.  mama made sure there was lots of newspaper down because oma has carpet in her kitchen but i dropped hardly anything.  I ate roast parsnip for the first time it was nummy and sweet.  I had some carrot too, and some tomato from mama’s salad, and some roast pepper from her dinner too.  then because everyone else was so slow eating, I had a good play with my shaky stacky froggy toy auntie rachel & uncle phil got for me.  i had a lovely day.

-dom