Beyond Breastmilk: the food post

I just realized that I haven't really covered the whole "what she's eating" issue on the blog. These day's Babe-O has quite a repertoire when it comes to mealtime (not just nursing anymore).

A couple of months ago we started introducing veggies. The first one we did was squash, which we made using a little mini food processor. We decided to go with the food processor instead of buying jarred baby food based on the fact that jarred baby food tastes like crap.

I tried some at a baby-shower thing and I'm not sure what the stuff was supposed to be but it smelled like an old fridge and tasted like pureed beef marinated in cat pee. On top of that, it is expensive and, like everything else, subject to the occasional lead paint Chinese recall.

So we make our own. It's super easy, super cheap, and tastes better. We make a little batch of something, feed her some fresh and freeze the rest in an ice cube tray. After that, you just have to throw the little veggie cube in the microwave and bingo-bango, there you go.

So we did squash first. Babe-O wasn't crazy about it but seemed to dig the novelty of eating something that didn't come out of a boob.

We introduced a new food every week or so, and now she's up to squash, apples, green beans, peas, pears, baby cereal (mixed with breast milk or juice), banana, and probably some stuff I'm forgetting. She can also eat a teething biscuit, which is very cool when we are out to dinner because she can feed that to herself while we eat and everyone gets to feel very relaxed and sophisticated.

The teething biscuits usually need to be taken away from her as they get soft, which means the dogs get their share of gross, slimy, dog-cookie-like snacks which Babe- has learned to share with them.

The only real problem we've had with food has been in the last few days. Since Babe-O is always trying to feed herself and seems to really enjoy the challenge, we got her some cheesy poofs that are designed for babies, porous enough to mush up and break down so they don't turn into a choking hazard.

The things taste like stale Cheetos and probably aren't exactly in line with the kid's usual healthful diet, but she really enjoyed feeding them to herself so they seemed like a good plan.

On the downside, both times she had them she ended up projectile-vomiting the things all over the place about four minutes after her last swallow. Baby puke is usually pretty gross in its own right, but add that rancid Cheeto smell and you've really got a mess on your hands (and shoes, and shoulder, and torso, and chair, and floor).

So after the second instance of flying cheesy poof goo, we retired the things to the trash can. Before too long she'll be able to do Cheerios and stuff like that, which will be nice.

We’ve got a reader

Today, Mom-O went through a big stack of Babe-O's new books with her, which she apparently enjoyed to no end. By the time I got home, she still hadn't had her fill and was eager to sit down with me and do some more reading.

That's when I got my first glimpse of Babe-O's very deliberate reading finger. As soon as you open a book, she balls her right hand into a little fist with her pointer finger sticking out at the page. She uses it to point at stuff, push buttons if there are buttons, and touch stuff in her touch-n-feel books (which she loves). That deliberate little finger is just stinking adorable.

It is very cool how interested she seems to be in her books, especially since both her Mom and I were big on reading when we were little. Hopefully some of her new, very basic books, will help her find the words she's been looking for with her little babbles and squeals lately.

"Dog...dog...dog..."

I just got an e-mail from home that made me smile.

It seems that babe-o was playing with a book that says words when you push different buttons. She got hung up on "dog," pressing it over and over again.

That is one word that she seems to know. She will always look around to find one of her dogs if you say the word.

Perhaps this is a hint about what her first word will be.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Happy Easter!

After the pre-Easter festivities that we attended on Good Friday, today was Easter proper. We again headed just a little ways out of town for another gathering of my inlaws: Babe-O's great-grandmother, grandparents, great aunt/uncle, and second cousins. I think they're her second cousins, I can never keep that cousin stuff straight. Unless you are dating dangerously close to your own family, it doesn't come up that much.

We got up a little after seven, hit the grocery store for green bean casserole ingredients, and had Babe-O's closed-door Easter with just us. We broke out the video camera and put her into an adorable little Easter dress so that we could capture the moment as she followed the little confetti eggs to her basket…okay, so I could hold her hands and tug her along until she arrived at her basket; same thing.

Actually it was two baskets, one from us and one from my parents back East (I always wanted to say "back East").

Ours was full of a cool selection of baby books, which I actually had not seen until today. The one from my parents was more elaborate, with a bunch of cool stuff for the baby and tasty stuff for us. Poor little sucker can't have candy yet – ha!

My parents' basket arrived last week, unassembled, with detailed and hilarious instructions on how to put it together. If I remember correctly, one of the instructions was "Place personally-selected Easter crap into basket." I laughed.

Anyway, the thing was very cute and very thoughtful and it was very cool that they went to the trouble to put it together. Very!

After that, we hit the road for the big gathering. Babe-O slept on the way there and after taking a while to warm up, seemed to have a good time. Her four cousins are all girls and run in age from something like 5 to something like 12. So they were very energetic and Babe-O eventually took an interest with them and played well, doing peek-a-boo and banging toys around. It was good to see her playing with other kids, even if they were pretty well separated from her in age.

Dinner was awesome, of course, and Babe-0 displayed outstanding manners by sitting in her booster seat and quietly gnawing on a teething biscuit for most of dinner. Sometimes we take for granted what a good kid she is, but stuff like this always reminds us.

Following a quick and pretty chilly trip to the park, we headed home, just in time for a pretty miserable bath that our slightly-overtired baby screamed most of the way through. She was good all day and earned some bathtime screaming.

Now she's upstairs with her Mom, nursing her way to sleep. Not a bad long weekend, but my sorry butt is thoroughly kicked.

Happy (Good) Friday

Today, I had off of work (kind of unexpectedly…Good Friday, really?) and our little family had a chance to go catch up with the extended family (Mom-O's side).

We headed just slightly out of town and started out with a trip to see Aunt/Uncle/Cousins. Babe-O was in her new Easter Dress that we picked up last night – she looked adorable, of course.

When we first arrived, she was very reserved and for about a half an hour quietly sat and gave sideways glances at everybody there. This seems to be her visiting routine. After she took it all in and started feeling comfortable with her surroundings, she finally warmed up and let everybody see a little bit of her personality. She played with some early Easter gifts, harassed the cats, and had a generally good time. Her Great Aunt and Uncle had gotten her some plastic keys for teething, which she promptly started sucking on and some cool touch-n-feel books, which she immediately dove into, feeling out the textures and turning the pages. Good gifts.

After that, it was across the street to her Great Grandparent's house, where the girls chatted in the kitchen while I sat in the living room with Mom-O's Grandfather, discussing how much damn better the world used to be and what a bunch of sissy nitwits my generation is. It was a good time.

Babe-O was particularly impressed with the two pets of the household, a borderline asthmatic Chihuahua shaped like a football and a 45-pound cat who by closing its eyes can make it nearly impossible to tell his head from his ass. More presents here, including a little stuffed bunny picked out by her notoriously cranky Great-Grandfather, proof again that he's got a soft spot or two. She loved the bunny, which clucks like a chicken (a la the Cadbury Bunny).

We finished there and decided to press our luck and extend our stay by stopping by in-law's house, where we knew we would end up staying well past Babe-O's bedtime. Her good mood didn't let up, and after a quick nap she spent the evening babbling, playing, and generally having a good time. I also babbled played, and had a good time. We ended up getting home around 10:30 p.m., which is hours after bath and bedtime. Babe-O slept in the car on the way home, as we knew she would, and is now happily sleeping in her Mom's lap, hopefully ready to be transferred seamlessly to her crib for a long, uninterrupted night's sleep. This is actually a possibility, as despite being sick, she has been sleeping through the night lately and just might cut us some slack and do the same tonight.

Tomorrow will be a day just for the three of us and on Sunday we've got more Easter festivities to attend. These holidays are busy, but as Babe-O grows (even at just seven months) she is getting more and more fun and more involved in everything that's going on. What a cool kid.

B.Y.O.Door

Babe-O has a cold. Mom-O has a cold. I have a cold.

Needless to say, as I drove home from work today, I wasn't expecting that a fantastic evening lay ahead.

I was wrong.

Perhaps starting to feel a little better than she has recently, Babe-O was a complete delight when I walked in the door. She was bouncing up and down, laughing and excited. I had plans to do some work as soon as I got home, but pushed that off until tonight on account of her awesome mood.

Mom-O headed out to run some errands and I got to hang out with my small buddy (I used to call her "little buddy," but that had a little too much of a Gilligan's Island ring to it).

She had a new FAO Schwartz wooden puzzle that was send to us by my parents and we had a great time banging the pieces around and trying to get them to fit in the holes. I couldn't believe how long the thing held her attention. In fact, I was by far the first one to lose interest, so we saddled Babe-O up in her Jeep baby sling and started doing some work around the house.

She helped me get the kitchen halfway together and goofed off with me as I tried to get moved into my rearranged office…soon to be an office/guest room, a fact I'm still struggling to accept. We've decided that Babe-O needs a dedicated play room, which means the guest room becomes Babe-O's Room II and my office becomes the guest room. I very stubbornly resisted this at first, but my office is waaaaay bigger than I actually need (which is/was pretty sweet) and it will be waaaaay nice to have a dedicated room for playing, which should translate to me tripping over less baby stuff elsewhere in the house.

We'll see how it goes.

It's actually a great deal for our guests, since our current guest room is quite small. The only downside is that at the moment there is no door leading to my office, so our more modest visitors will have to abide by the temporary B.Y.O.Door policy.

Putting the “ick” in Sick

Babe-O hasn't been feeling so hot. For the last couple of days, her nose has been running like a fountain, she's been sneezing constantly and she's developed a tiny, quiet theatrical little cough. She is up a lot at night, having trouble breathing through her stuffy nose and she is very temperamental during the day.

I was on baby duty yesterday. We were playing with some plastic balls that she has, which was all well and good until she accidently dropped one and started bawling about it. Poor kid…short fuse.

Anyway, today ended up being a daddy/baby day (as opposed to a baby-daddy day, which happens four times a week on most daytime talk shows).

I know that she still feels like crap, but Babe-O was a little trooper.

We got up at seven, ate some breakfast together, and played around for an hour or so while Mom caught up on sleep (she was up most of the night with the sick kid).

When it was time to get some stuff done, I plopped Babe-O into her Jeep carrier and she rode around with me while I worked in the kitchen and did some work in my office. I talked to her while I worked and she seemed to have a blast.

Sleeping has been challenging, so we planned the day around getting her into the car for her two naps, morning and afternoon. Being propped up in her car seat seems to help with the stuffiness and the car is always a good bet on getting her to sleep.

For our morning outing, I hung out in the car with the sleeping sickie while Mom-O hit the grocery store.

After that, it was back to work, bustling around in the office and hanging out with Babe-O. Trying to cut Mom some slack, I headed back out in the afternoon, taking Babe-O with me.

We ran a few errands, including a trip to the bookstore to get me some thoroughly mindless reading (see shelf at right). After keeping my sick buddy up for maybe an hour, we got back on the highway and headed in the general direction of home. She fell asleep and I found a shady spot to stop and read.

About 100 pages later, we pulled back in the driveway and spend some time playing and then hit the tub for Babe-O's bath.

Surprisingly enough, about half an hour later I came inside from playing with the dogs in the backyard and found a sleeping baby on her way upstairs to be put into bed. With any luck, we'll have a good night and she'll be feeling better in the morning.

Looking back, this was a really cool weekend. Babe-O and I have been getting along better every day and I'm starting to get used to the big smile she shoots me when I come in the room. She's still super attached to her Mom, but I'm glad to see she seems to have decided that Dad ain't so bad either.

Love that kid! (that sick, snotty, fussy, occasionally-gross little kid) Love her!

Babe-O’s Sweet Ride

Happy birthday to me.

Mom-O picked me up an outstanding, slightly early birthday present today. It's a jogging stroller made by Jeep (who says Chrysler isn't diversified?). I've wanted one for a while now, but it was a good deal today as the line was discontinued and the floor model was available at a discount. So long story short, Mom-O was in the parking lot at Babies-R-Us trying to stuff the thing in the car, along with Babe-O's everyday stroller and a giant box of diapers.

Right now, I pretty much hang out with Babe-O from the time I get home until her bath/bed time at 7:00. I try to get up and work in the mornings before going to the office, so on most days my fat butt is out of luck when it comes to making time to get any exercise (though the Wii Fit helps). Anyway, I'm hoping I can start inserting an afternoon jog with Babe-O into my super-routine-driven days and maybe get in a bit of shape while I'm at it.

Plus, getting Babe-O out in the fresh air for some jogging excitement a little more each day has to be a good thing, too.

I'm completely stoked about the whole thing.

Houston, we have a tooth…

So what causes your delightful, well-mannered baby to suddenly turn into a relentlessly cranky duck? You got it…the first tooth is here.

On Sunday, Babe-O was being really, really difficult. Mom and Dad were taking turns being at our wit's end. She didn't want to be put down. She didn't want to be held. She wouldn't eat. She wouldn't sleep unless she was in her Mom's lap. It was bad news all around.

Just when I was starting to get worried that we had gotten cocky and let our sweet little girl turn into a bad egg, it all became clear.

I got an excited phone call at work today letting me know that Babe-O had her first tooth, a bottom one. Obviously, this is super cool, but on the other hand we're pretty shocked at how quickly she's growing up.

She eats pureed vegetables. She drinks from a sippy cup (she skipped bottles altogether). She laughs. She plays.

It's getting harder and harder to remember those days when all she did was eat, sleep, and poop.

Sure, it's a little sad, but I can't help but feel like she only gets cooler every day. And I think she can keep that pace up for quite a while.