Baby Food :: Real Food

So, babies.  Yeah.  They're kind of what we do around here lately.  Here's the dealio, though.  Baby isn't the only show in town, even though it seems like it.  Its just that the other show in town is "Research done in pursuit of a PhD in Industrial Engineering" and let me tell you, their material is a little dry.  Like today's big number, "Writing a mathematical program to optimize node connectivity via the node-splitting algorithm".  

Who wants to hear about that?  Anybody?  No, I didn't think so.  My advisor actually yawned twice during our meeting, if that tells you anything.  Riveting stuff.  Although I kinda do find it to be super interesting, I have one foot in the real world still and I know that you all don't love it.  And that's okay.  We can still be friends.  But it leaves the hard truth that if we can't talk about work stuff, we're gonna talk about home stuff, and what I do most of the time at home is chill with my bambina.

For the first 5 months, we did the usj (how in the world do you spell the abreviation for "usual"??), which basically amounts to a lot of sleeping, a lot of nursing, and some baby circuit training.  You know, sit in this seat for a bit, play with this toy for a bit, c'mon now lets dance, hey, who's that baby in the mirror, etc.  But since my girl has gotten older, she's up for longer, and we needed to entertain her for longer. Enter: Real Food 

Note: That is not the only reason we started RG on real food.  She was also able to sit up unassisted, and able to/interested in grab food and put it in her mouth.  Just so you know.  We are mildly responsible around here.

Get some of that watermelon, girl!

I think I've mentioned it, but we're doing what is called Baby Led Weaning.  You skip the pureed food, wait until at least 6 months, and start right in on finger food.  We didn't wait the whole 6 months, as I mentioned, because RG doesn't like to follow the rules and doesn't care what she "should" be doing, and I decided to let her try it and see how it went.  I figured, since the outside of her (her gross motor skills, balance, interest, etc.) was ready, the inside of her was probably ready, too.

Let me tell you, its been a blast.  I mean, our girl is a mess every. single. day.  We do a lot of bathing, and some onesies had to be sacrificed for the greater good.  But oh, its so fun.  She likes everything so far.  And although I'm pretty sure she's not actually getting much of it down, she is very interested in mashing it and gumming it and throwing it and spitting it out!

Now, I'm kind of new at this (obvi), so I made sure to snag a book to read about it (can't totally erase my type-A tendancies).  I also checked out the website that I linked to up ^ there, and googled "Baby Led Weaning - what foods can I feed my baby" quite a few times.  If you're interested, or you've done it, I'd love to chat with you about it, hit me up! [FTR: that's the second time I've used that phrase today, and I feel a bit ridiculous for saying it.  Don't judge me, I'm already judging myself.]

Foods we've tried to date:

 *apples*strawberries*watermelon*cantaloupe*mango*banana*peaches*carrots*sweet potatoes*green peppers*broccoli*avocado*yogurt*Laughing Cow Cheese*steak*

She's really seemed to enjoy them all, but the ones that seem to work the best for us have been the mango, avocado, watermelon, and the cheese.  I leave the peel on the mango/avacado and cut it into strips, sort of french-fry sized.  She can then grip it better, since the outside doesn't get all slimy, and the inside of it is soft enough to gumm off.  Oh, and she liked the yogurt, too, but MY WORD its a mess.

One of the big arguments for BLW is that baby can simply eat with the family, whatever they're having [taking care to leave out most of the salt & sugars].  So tonight, I made myself stir fry, and RG got to try some.  Let's just say she's a big fan of [reduced sodium] soy sauce.  Here's a short video:

In case you can't see the video, link is here

And that's how we do baby  real food in the Mag Hiz-ouse.

<3 M.