Chicken noodle soup from the Crock Pot

And a chocolate chip cookie (also homemade!)

A satisfied customer

Emme is officially eating solids.  We started a few weeks ago with some rice cereal and Stage 1 fruits and vegetables.  She had a little trouble learning to eat from the spoon -- she kept pushing out the food with her tongue--, but she caught on quickly and seemed to really like what she was eating.  After a few weeks of those, I moved her on to Stage 2 blends, which are a little thicker and easier to feed.  I've mixed and matched brands -- some Gerber with DHA, some organic stuff, some of the new blends that come in the squeeze pouches.  My approach with Ollie was just to expose him to as many different flavors as possible in order to get him used to eating a wide variety of foods for later. I don't know if that attributed to his willingness to eat almost anything or his penchant for broccoli and carrots, but it seems reasonable enough to repeat with Emme.  Some of the new organic squeezes include things like rutabaga and parsnips and purple carrots -- things I wouldn't recognize or know how to cook, let alone be likely to serve to a young child.

I know there are new (or actually old) approaches to starting solids that involve waiting until the child is old enough to feed herself and then letting her decide what to eat and how much.  But I haven't had any problems with either kid using the more traditional approach of baby food purees, and hopefully Emme will switch over to actual solids as easily as Oliver did.  I also am not adventurous enough of a cook to expose the kids to as many different kinds of food as are included in the baby foods.  It's pretty easy to tell when she's had enough, so I don't think we're overfeeding her.  The biggest thing I've had to deal with as a result of starting solids is a lot of poopy diapers.  We have definitely not had to resort to prunes with this one.

I'm definitely excited to see Emme try out new foods.  I've given her some banana, avocado, a blueberry, and a blackberry to try -- she's made some really funny faces.  I can hardly believe that she's already eating solids.  She'll be six months old in two days!  Fortunately, I have six more months of breastfeeding (at least) to help me enjoy her babyhood.

Reading nutrition labels is very important

Learning to use the spoon

Ba-sghetti

First Foods

Ollie got to try some new table food on our recent road trip. He had a scrambled egg at the Cracker Barrel (a family favorite for road trips), mac 'n cheese and applesauce at a sandwich place in Boone, and two french fries at McDonald's.

Sippy Cups and Baby Food

Oliver is slowly taking steps out of babyhood and into, well, whatever comes next. He's not toddling next, but he is truly crawling now, thanks in part to a stint at my parents, who have rugs on their hardwoods. I've introduced the sippy cup. I tried the Avent ones first, but, like our sitter's son, Oliver had a hard time with the harder spout. So I got the Nuby ones that are very soft and a bit more like a bottle. He hasn't had much luck with them. He liked to push on the spout and pour water onto the table. He chews on the handles and licks the bottom of the cup. While at my parents, he was rocking forward and backward in his seat and sloshed water up into the spout and got a drink, which led him to continue rocking to try and do it again. I haven't put milk in it yet because I don't want to waste the breastmilk. I sometimes put a little juice in and help him drink it. The water is mostly there to experiment with. He shouldn't drink too much water yet, but I don't mind if it get everywhere and I have to dump it out at the end. He definitely likes sloshing around the water in the cup.

I've also been trying to introduce more and more non-baby solids -- Goldfish and crackers and Multi-Grain Cheerios. He does very well with those -- when he's not feeding them to the dog or crushing them up in his superhero grip. I tried this week making some homemade baby food, essentially pureeing what we were having for dinner. In this case, it was baked skinless chicken breasts, zucchini, yellow squash, and tomatoes. He's had all of these ingredients before in store-bought baby food, but this he didn't like. Granted it was chunkier than what he normally eats, but he can handle that texture in oatmeal and lumpier baby food from Gerber. He would try and eat it and then squeeze his eyes shut and react to it. Eventually he refused it and did so again yesterday when I tried it again for lunch. Wes thought the tomato might have been too acidic for him, but he's had both raw and pureed tomatoes before. I'm going to keep trying the chicken but in other vegetables. I got some organic canned corn and beans to try and blend up to feed him. He has eight teeth, all in front, so I want him to get out of the runny baby food and into something thicker so he learns to chew things up. His challenge right now with some foods is more the handling of it than the eating. He has trouble getting banana pieces into his mouth, for example.

It's all very messy, sometimes frustrating, but mostly fun to watch.

Up on high

Now that we have a new kitchen table that boasts benches versus chairs, I wanted to get Oliver a more traditional high chair that stands alone and doesn't take up so much room. Wes and I both really love the old-fashioned wooden high chairs, but they're very pricey, so we decided to go the uber-cheap route and get one of the restaurant-style wooden high chairs. It'll fit him until he's big enough for a normal seat at the table, and it's absent that blasted tray, which, while functional, drove me nuts.

The other virtue of this high chair for Oliver and Lucy is that there's less to keep them apart during feeding time. Oliver can reach down to share his Cheerios or Goldfish or banana puffs with Lucy -- in some cases just giving her a lick before enjoying it further himself (ewww!).

Ollie's Journal, Weeks 23-29

Things I did (must've been a lot since I haven't journaled in a while):

1. Started eating solids. Oh, I love em, I love em, I love em. So much so that I quickly moved from Stage 1 to Stage 2. Garden Vegetables, Mixed Vetetables, Apples and Prunes, Turkey and Rice Dinner. New for tonight: Mangos! I cut back on my milk a little for a while but am just starting to catch back up.
2. Cut some teeth, which are slowly inching in. Mom checks on their progress every morning. This morning she could feel little pricks where the tops are through the gums. Sometimes it hurt a lot, but mostly it didn't bother me.
3. Traveled -- a wedding two weeks ago, Nashville this week. I've taken three airplane rides in 6 months and now that we have a car (a great place to nap, I should mention), I'll be getting out even more!
4. Fell in love with the dog. We are so BFFs. Every time I see her I get a big grin on my face and start to laugh and giggle. I really like Jack, my friend who comes with his mom to take care of me when mom and dad are at work, and Jack likes Lucy, too.
5. Got to moving. I won't stay on my back -- I'd rather just roll over and see where I can get to. It's a good thing mom and dad are moving soon, cause I'm going to need more space to explore soon.

Right now: Making funny noises as I wake up from a 2 1/2-hour nap in my crib.

It's a start

Ollie has started trying to hold his bottle recently. He doesn't get how to tip it up so the fluid will come out, but it's a start. And in case anyone is worried, that's not diet soda in his bottle -- it's apple-prune juice. Mmmm.