Saturday, August 15, 2009

The Greatest Joy

My son, Jackson, is 9 months old and he is now, almost exclusively, eating "table foods". We still give him some jarred food, but for the most part I try to cook items that he can enjoy.

The first time that he was able to eat a complete meal, with only my homemade food.....nothing warmed up or from a jar.....was one of the best feelings in the world. A feeling that I was able to fully support his nutrition again (the first was breast feeding), and that he relies on me.

While it is not quite the same as when I was nursing him, because his Dad could probably warm him up a jar of Spaghetti-O's (or you fill in the blank of some easily fixed meal), but it still gives you that "warm fuzzy feeling". ;o)

Enjoy very moment that you have with your children. They change so quickly, you definitely have to live each moment in the moment. Don't take anything for granted, because it can be taken away all too quickly.

4 comments:

  1. Yes that is great! Have you thought about making your own baby food for baby #2, we did it wil both and I think most people are surprised to find out how easy it really is (and Cheap!). Let me know if you want more info I'd be glad to share how we did it.

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  2. I haven't really given it much thought. Seems like a lot of work :( I wouldn't be opposed to it, but I know that I would have to start cooking a little differently (I tend to use a lot of spices, etc in my meals). Ah well, if you have any advice to make this task not seem so daunting, let me know! Thanks ;o)

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  3. When they are just starting out we usually would just do different frozen (or fresh, but both my boys started eating in winter..) veggies. We skipped the infant cereal cause I think it looks wierd :) so we started on mashed banana mixed breastmilk or formula (Eli actually started on avcado mixed this way cause we had some). For veggies at first we bought organic whole carrots, but after I burned a whole batch (always use a times...) I realized you can just use a bag of baby carrots. Basically you just steam you bag of veggies (can use any frozen, carrots are so cheap they were the only ones we did fresh) or you could boil but I think you lose some nutrients. It doesn't really matter how you cook them though. Then you just puree, using some of the cooking liquid if needed to get the right consistency. You can use a blender, food processor, or my favorite the immersion blender hand mixer ( we love this, we make a lot of smoothise and use this daily, much easier to clean than the others). After it's all pureed just spoon into ice cube trays, put in freezer and the next day pop out into a freezer bag. You can just take out one at a time- more as they eat more, and either warm it up or take it out early enough to let it melt in the fridge (I rarely remembered to do that). We would have a bunch of bags in the freezer with cubes of lots of different veggies, grains, pasta... When Eli got a little older I started grinding oats for him to have oatmeal when I was cooking it I would through in a frozen peach and a veggie cube (you could do this with infant cereal too, and when it was all cooked, and melted, I would use the hand mixer again to grind up the peaches to a puree with the other food. It probably wouldn't matter at first about the spices because they would prob be pretty much just on the fruits and veggies at first, but later depedning on what you made- maybe you could rinse it off?- that would def depend on wehat it is though :) We have a lot of the little tupperware type comtainers that I would put 1 or more cubes in when we would go out to eat or to someone else's house, so I wouldn't have to buy baby food for him, I also bought some little appleasauce cups just in case I forgot his food I had something on hnad- I kept one in the diaper bag and the car. I would usually make a batch of baby food while I was cooking dinner so it wouldn't really feel like I had to do much, as long as you make plenty at a time it's not a lot of work, we usually had enough for a few weeks in the freezer. I have the book Super Baby Food and have really liked it, although she has a specific "diet" hersuper ceareal was a little too much work for me, but she has a lot of info on what can be started at what age.... let me know if you hae any other questions, it is eassy :) I actually don't think we ever bought any babyfood jars for either of the boys

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  4. I'm with Rachel... making your own baby food is really easy and affordable. Seriously... cook the frozen veggies then throw them in the blender with a little water and puree until you like the consistency, then freeze in ice cube trays. With my DD, we spent $40 and made her easily 4 months worth of food. We did carrots, peas, peaches, sweet potatoes, blueberries and I don't even remember what else now. Check out www.wholesomebabyfood.com. They have great "recipes" on there... my dd love the blueberry sweet potato pie (blueberries, sweetpotatoes, yogurt and cinnimon). =) We'll probably do jarred baby food for my son (4.5 months right now) but only because WIC provides it, and free (or state provided) is cheaper than cheap.

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