Puree and Simple

Happy half birthday to E-chan, who was born exactly 6 months ago. Doesn't time fly?

With this age comes starting solid foods. Interesting process, I'm finding. After a month or two of having E-chan watch us LIKE A HAWK every time we ate or drank, we started with the classic allergy safe first food, rice cereal. Then every 3-4 days, we introduce a new food (to make sure there is no adverse reaction). If he doesn't like something or finds the texture strange, he does the funniest little grimace, which I wish I could capture on camera for you all to see, but I'm usually to busy stiffling my laugh. If he LOVES something, he is generally trying to lean forward towards the spoon or even lick his bib!

Most things are really easy to prepare - wash, peel, steam, then blend or mash. Zucchini was a bit tricky - followed a recommendation to "press through a sieve" (but book must have been having a laugh, as zucchini will not press through even a course sieve) then tried to blend, but didn't have enough volume, so had to steam some more and then blend (really hoping at this stage that E-chan would like it).

It took him about 2 weeks to get the hang of chewing and swallowing food. We give him the spoon with a bit of food in it to play with at the end - and food gets smeared and flung everywhere! Gradually, we'll make the texture lumpier, and once he has some toothy-pegs, we'll give him finger food to feed himself.

Tools of the trade: plastic spoons, little containers and bowls to heat up small portions of foods up in, ice cube trays to freeze small portions, old plastic tablecloth to use as drop sheet over carpet, highchair, wipable bibs. So here's E-chan's rating of foods so far, in order of introduction...

Rice cereal: ho hum.... (OK with a twist of banana)
Pear: ummm? (possibly a bit gritty, but liking it better now)
Sweet potato: yum!
Banana: YUUUUUUUUUUUM! What is this stuff and where can I get more!!
Zucchini: Yum!
Pumpkin: Yum!

Contenders for next foods will probably be broccoli, carrot, green beans, apple and apricot, and some other cereals...oats or possibly wheat. Soon hopefully he will take some lentils and then maybe even some minced or shredded meat. I can't wait until I can cook kid-friendly food that all 3 of us can eat! - but that is about 6-12 months off. In the meantime, it's purees and mashes, and a little bit goes a long way, given his average non-milk meal size is about a tablespoon.

What FUN!