Baby-led weaning progress

By the time Penni was 6 months old I was abusing this isle at Whole Foods on a regular basis.

I haven't bought anything for Cora, well maybe that's not entirely true, I did buy a squash that I had no interest in consuming but got it so I can bake it and feed it to Cora, or let Cora play with it. That's pretty much what she does with the food, she plays with it. Today we had baked potato for dinner and I gave her a chunk off of my potato and we joked that she preferred mashed potatoes because that's what she did to it. It's messy, very messy, but I'm resisting the urge to just put food in her mouth. I know that she is still getting all the necessary nutrition form breast milk so I'm not worried in the slightest. Every time she manages to get some food in her mouth she shivers, it's cute and funny. She does occasionally gag and then she'll push the food out with her tongue. Overall, so far so good. It's just a little weird that she is not so much into eating it, by her age Penni was shoveling food in her mouth. But we did start Penni off on purees and yes even cereal at 4 months of age. Know better do better. Here is miss Coraline making a mess.

Some foods don't make quite as much mess, she seemed to enjoy the cucumber

Wasn't as big a fan of the carrot, mostly I wanted to see if she'll use it as a chew toy. No such luck, it went on the floor rather quickly. Same story with celery.

I'm curious to see how this progresses, and when she'll start actually consuming food. This is actually fun for parents too.

A lesson in humility

A few days ago Penni lost her second tooth few days ago and we asked what she wanted to do trade it in for (we don't do tooth fairy) she wanted ice cream. So we planned a trip for the weekend, decided on Pink Berry. Somehow she heard some talk about hot chocolate the day before our scheduled trip and kept talking about hot chocolate and ice cream. Granted it was a rather warm day we went out for ice cream, she enjoyed it and as soon as it was gone started talking about hot chocolate again. I told her next tooth she can trade in for hot chocolate. Fast forward to Monday morning, we woke up early so had some extra time for breakfast, Cora ended up going back to sleep right before breakfast. So out of the goodness of my heart I decided to make my kid a hot chocolate, it was a chilly morning, she's been talking about it for several days, why not. So I heat the milk, prep the mugs, milk is hot and foamy so I pour it in. Turn to get something by the sink and knock over my mug, thick rich hot chocolate is now everywhere. Counter, running down the cabinets, floor. Sigh, I wanted to cry. It was only my mug I spilled, Penni's was safe, she quickly got her mug out of my way (can you blame her? haha). I put more milk in the pot to boil to make myself another cup, meanwhile I proceed to clean the spilled goodness. While cleaning I didn't realized the milk was foaming so it ran over, cue sizzling milk on the burner, the smell of burnt milk. Now I really want to cry. WTF is going on!? sigh again. I finish cleaning the counter, decide I'll deal with the burner clean up later, fix myself a new cup of hot chocolate and go to join Penni. Sit down at the table, move my bowl of cereal closer to me… and guess what! I spill the damn cereal! Seriously, what is going on here!? At this point I may have shed a few tears. So while cleaning the third mess I made in less than 5 minutes I'm feeling rather ridiculous and guilty. How many times did I get upset and probably over react because Penni spilled milk/water/juice/lunch whatever else. I mean I know kids spill and drop stuff and that's normal. but at some point sometimes it gets frustrating, and I react. Sigh, I'm sorry Penni. Definitely will try to keep my reactions in check, and just help her clean her mess that she probably already feels bad about. Mommies make messes too, sometimes a lot of them. The only difference is that no one will scold me for it.

Siblings

It's still weird to pause and think, I have 2 kids! Crazy. I don't even feel like I'm in my 30's, that is until I hang out with people in their 20's then I definitely feel like I'm in my 30's. But that's irrelevant to the fact that I have two kids! Penni finally has a sister. When I was pregnant the whole time she insisted it was a girl. We didn't find out the gender, didn't want to. But Penni really wanted a sister, or maybe she just knew, and kept telling everyone that she is going to have a baby sister. I remember one evening late in my pregnancy we were talking and she was chattering away about her baby sister and I said, what if it's a baby brother? She paused for a moment and said, but it's a baby sister! I laughed and asked her, but if it's a brother we are going to love him anyway, right? She said, no. I knew through my entire pregnancy that baby was a girl too, but of course intuition isn't 100% guaranteed, and I enjoyed the suspense of not knowing. So when Cora was born I think we were all a little glad for another girl, knowing Penni would accept her. Joking of course, sort of. Penni wasn't here for the birth, so when she came home the morning after it was pretty cute seeing her meet her baby sister for the first time. She was so gentle and her eyes sparkled. Not a hint of jealousy just pure excitement and love.
The first meeting


This was the following morning, Cora's 3rd day earth side. Penni ran to our room as soon as she woke up and wanted to hold her sister, she then rocked her gently and sang "twinkle twinkle little star" to her. I think my heart melted and there may have been tears. Nothing but love.


Cora is a week old here


One of my favorites, almost 2 weeks old


I think this was on Mother's Day


After this I decided I needed to put Cora in a carrier on Penni, so first this happened


and then this


Around 3-4 months Cora started to really notice and pay attention to Penni, watching them interact is pretty awesome and often entertaining.




Can't wait to watch their relationship grow.

Pumpkin Patch

Visited one of the local Pumpkin Patches this past weekend, Penni had a blast! She went in costume, the kid takes this dress up business very seriously.  Just in case it's isn't clear, she is a butterfly. Not a fairy, although she wants to be one now all of a sudden, but that day she was still a butterfly.

Riding in the "train", I'm pretty sure those are the same white bins that they do despicable things with on Breaking Bad haha.


Ganging up on the guinea pigs


Force feeding the chicken some straw


The token picture


Pretty sure the jumpy house was her favorite



Cora was there too, hung out in the carrier the whole time, except for this diaper change


Now I want to go to a real big middle of nowhere farm Pumpkin Patch. But maybe not this year. There is a Historic Farm near by maybe we'll visit there. Penni refused to ride the ponies while we were there but has asked to ride one several times since we got home so we might have to find some. Not for keeps, just for an overpriced 2 minute ride.

Testing testing 123

Testing the phone app
Blowing raspberries is the best thing ever! According to Cora.

Baby's first time eating banana, baby led weaning

Nothing to say, just that my baby is cute.

Steamed artichokes with a garlic/lemon butter dip, and a how to eat them guide.

I've always been intimidated by artichokes until I got some in our weekly farm box, they were here I didn't want to waste them so I looked up how to make them and gave it a shot. I remember we were so skeptical about them that we didn't even sit down, we just stood at the kitchen counter and ate them dipping them in plain melted butter. To our surprise we thoroughly enjoyed them and they were actually quite filling and hearty.
Without further ado, you'll need some artichokes, we usually do 4. So for 4 artichokes I usually use 4TBSP of butter melted, 2-3 cloves of garlic and juice of half a lemon.

Wash your artichokes


Trim them, cut the stem at the base and tear off the few leaves off the bottom, just the ones that are practically falling off anyways. Cut about 1.5" off the top.


If the petals/leaves are prickly then take some kitchen shears and trim them all


Put about an inch of water into a cooking pot and put your prepped artichokes in there, you can salt the water a bit but it isn't really necessary. Also they will start to go dark as soon as you cut them so if you are serving it up for company and want to keep them a vibrant green then put a slice of lemon over the top of each artichoke where you cut it. I don't usually do that because I'm too lazy.


Bring to a boil reduce heat cover and steam for about 30minutes


After about 30 minutes check them, gently tug at one of the petals and if it comes off easily then they are ready, if it's not wanting to come off then let them cook longer, make sure your water isn't cooked out so they don't burn.


While they cook prep the dip, melt your butter then while it's still hot grate the garlic into it and whisk it in well, squeeze half a lemon into the butter as well. I add olive oil, probably because that just makes it seem slightly healthier, you can do that as well or you can let the dip be just butter.


If adding olive oil, add in a small stream while whisking


Pour the dip into individual dipping bowls and serve up on a big plate (need space for the waste) with the artichoke.


If you've never eaten one before, you tear off the leaves one at a time, dip them in the butter mixture, and then at the bottom of the leaf is where the meat is, scrape it off with your teeth.


Do that with all the meaty leaves, when they get really thin I usually pull them out in a bunch and just dip and eat the bottom tips. Once you've processed all the leaves you get to the center, that's the choke of your artichoke. That hairy part is not edible


Luckily it comes off easily (the hairy stuff that is) just scrape it off with a spoon or a fork.


You'll be left with the base of the flower, known as the heart. It's delicious! you can eat the whole thing, the artichoke heart that is.
Found this nifty little diagram, just a bit of a guide. Enjoy!
http://gardenofeaden.blogspot.com/2010/06/which-part-of-artichoke-do-you-eat.html

Baby Led Weaning

Now that Cora is practically 6 months we finally gave her some real food. I cut about a 1/4 of an avocado (cleaned of course) and just put it on the tray of her high chair. She pushed it around, poked at it, smeared it, pinched it and flung pieces of it all over the place. After playing with it for a good five minutes she was covered in avocado! She stuck her hand in her mouth and finally got a taste, that's what's in the video below. Time to invest in some waterproof bibs I suppose.