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.