Eating like a MAN.

Lincoln is 10 months old.

I stopped breast feeding about a month ago when he got a virus in which it hurt his mouth to suck on me titty (allegedly- he stopped and I can only assume this was the reason).  Once his mouth healed, he still wanted nothing to do with me.

Once I got over the sorrows of being replaced by a sippy cup, I started to wonder if I should be giving him formula at least…

Dad said yes, and that when his other kids were this age that they would have at least 8 ounces of formula in the mornings and evenings BUT that they were not eating real food at this time either, just stage 3 baby food and a couple finger foods.

Huh???

I thought what I was doing was normal.

But then I started to notice when I went out to eat…kids Linc’s age are often still noshing on baby food while I, thinking I am doing the right thing, am ordering a meal for my little bundle off of the kids menu.

The other day we went to the pool with Linc’s brother and sister and I packed a lunch for everyone.  Peanut butter and jelly, carrots, apples, vegi straws, and oreo cookies.

Lincoln ate more than his brother and sister…probably combined.  No half a sandwich for him, “I will eat a whole sandwich mom, and if you even think of giving me half I will scream until I get the rest of my sandwich.”  Carrots, “yes please.” Apples, “love em and you better keep them coming.”  Vegi straws, “well duh, those are my favorite mom.” Oreo, “Don’t even think of not giving me my dessert.”

The kid eats like a man.

I used to think this was normal and that I was doing everything at the normal rate.  But now I am not so sure.

Yesterday at the grocery store I gave him a box of Good and Plenty’s to hold and play with.

The kid ate through the box and then started eating the candy.

Licorice!

What kind of baby likes licorice???

So please tell me, is this normal like I originally thought or am I raising a man in a babies body?

How to make baby food for the busy, cheap, or just plain lazy.

Let’s face it, I don’t have any time and I have even less money.

I always thought moms who made their own baby food were fanatical, crazy healthy, and didn’t have anything better to do than waste their time doing something someone has already done for them.

I apologize.

Not that I don’t think the above applies to some, but certainly not all.

When Linc was sixth months old, I ran out of food.  It was about 8:30 at night and I had just come home from conferences or some other event that took all night and the little squirt was hungry.

And the cupboards were empty.

This is when I learned that making baby food was not only super easy but I also eventually realized it was much MUCH cheaper too.

This is my recipe to easy baby food for the busy, cheap, or just plan lazy.

1. Buy a large bag of frozen vegis from Costco or if you don’t belong to Costco, Walmart has bags of vegis for about 88 cents that work just as well.
2. Buy  Ziploc Zip-n-Steam bags or buy the off brand.  If you are going for cheap defiantly the off brand
3. Place your bag of vegis in one of the bags and follow the cooking directions
4. Nuke it
5. Take it out and put it into a blender or bullet (you DO NOT need a fancy baby food blender or baby food bullet, they all work).  If you are looking for super quick I would go for a bullet (much easier to clean).  I have one my mom gave me that she never used and I just keep it on my counter.  Love it.
6. Blend
7. Feed and Store (freeze well for two weeks)

Depending on how full you filled your bag you will have enough food for a day or two.  And it only takes about 7 minutes!!!

Glorious.

I also do this same exact thing with bags of frozen fruit (super cheap at Costco).  The only difference is that I don’t steam them I just let the fruit thaw or even blend it frozen.

So easy, and so so cheap.

Take it from me, I am not an over achiever.  This is not difficult and it saves me tons of money.  Plus I know that my kid is getting healthy non-processed foods.

I feel so vindicated.

Weekend To-Do List

• Clean my disaster of living room
• Clean the disgusting bathroom
• Dust
• Do the dishes
• Go through my extreme tower of mail from the week and pay my bills
• Do the 3 HUGE piles of laundry from the last two weeks (that is right mom, if you are keeping track, no laundry has been done in this house since you left)
• Clean out the Gerber Vanilla Stars that spilled into my purse/diaper bag* a week and a half ago
• Make a grocery store list
• Go to Costco and see if I can find anything on said list for cheap
• Go to Walmart Market for the rest
• Put away groceries (I loathe this)
• Fold laundry (also loathe)
• Put laundry away (lets be real this will not happen, and the clothes will remain folded on the love seat for a week before I get sick of it and actually walk them a room away to put them into drawers)
• Make baby food for the week (a little ambitious considering I have been pretty lazy about this lately)
• Drive to the gym and cancel my membership because I just bought a treadmill (yay!)
• Touch base with friends in some way shape or form (probably lunch or something)
• Find a few minutes for myself (check, this is it)
• Do all this while keeping a baby happy, healthy, entertained, well fed, and napped

Welcome to the weekend…

Whoever said this was time off was crazy.

Literally

crazy.

At least someone is getting some rest…(my brother’s dog, Dragonlips)

 

Healthy Finger Foods for Babies

I am on the prowl.  I am certainly not the healthiest eater and I am really not caught up in the organic craze that has hit this country.  Not to say that it may not be better, but I would eat a fruit snack found under the couch from a few days ago.  Stuff like that just doesn’t bother me in the least, so a few pesticides, child’s play 🙂

Anyways, back to the point.

I’m not the healthiest eater, however, I am not a huge fan of feeding my little tater tot a lot of processed foods.  At this point I have full control of what he puts in his mouth (with the exception of what he may find on the floor while I am not looking, earlier today a dirty shoe looked tasty to him so his judgement on what to eat is a little off).

But considering I have all this control over his eating, especially at this age, I want him to eat good stuff.

Stuff that grows from ground or stuff that falls from trees.

That gerber banana vanilla star may be easy and delicious, but what is it really?

I figure if I can’t name the ingredients in it, I really don’t want him eating a whole lot of it.  Everything in moderation of course, but I want better for him most of the time.

So all you experienced super moms out there- What do I feed him???

I make most of his baby food, but he is moving on to finger foods and I just don’t know what to give him.

Here are my healthy-feed-myself foods up to this point.

Bananas

Mandarine Oranges

And Nothing Else

Someone please help me out.  It hurts my heart every time I give that kid a graham cracker.

Mom Rule #1

It is really tough to have rules for and eight and a half month old, I pretty much call all the shots at this age.

Until now…

As I was feeding my little terdlet tonight on the couch, which I am certain has nothing to do with the fact the high chair had yet to be cleaned from the night before, the little stink kept grabbing for a book on the other side of the sofa.  After a continuous struggle of refocusing his attention on his food I finally wised up and removed the book from the couch.

Well, the resourceful little terd then managed to find a frisbee on this same couch.

Hello, new fixation.

Not learning from my past mistakes, I kept taking the frisbee from his hands and moving it further from him on the couch.

The obvious move would be to also move the frisbee to a new out-of-sight location.  But I enjoy making life difficult for myself.

As a result I kept catching myself saying the same few words.

“No toys while eating.”

“No toys while eating.”

“Not toys while eating”

And there it was…

My first rule.

 

 

Just Catching Up

I have had an exciting last few days.  I had my six month baby shots, I went to a house inspection (everything looked pretty great), I watched KU beat THE Obnoxious Ohio State, I sat around and watched mom dad and uncle Mike wash cars, AND I tried solid foods for the first time.  With all this going on you would think I would be tired but NOPE, sleep is for the birds.  I like to keep everyone up at my house aaaallll niigghhtt loooong.