Give Me Food!



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We have moved onto a new milestone with Jilly Billy... real food. Not that baby stuff that's pureed and gross (she completely skipped over that step) but the kind of stuff that real humans eat.

This was a little scary for me as my other two children loved baby food. They gulped up cereal, fruits and veggies and were actually apprehensive about transitioning to real food- my son to the point I was worried he would be drinking his food from a straw for the rest of his life.

Jilly Billy is a girl ahead of her months- at six months I started feeding her baby food. I fed her every day for two months and every day of those two months she looked at me like I was trying to poison her. I started to worry- I thought she was going to starve without baby food. Then I realized that she was a fat little chubster and that in all actuality despite what baby food makers tell us, babies don't *need* baby food right when they are six months old. I calmed down and decided to go with the flow and let Jilly Billy guide me in when she was ready for food.

One day I gave her little chunks of banana and she loved it. Then I gave her avocado (man, avocados are expensive) and she loved that too. At eight months old I realized that she wanted real food, not pureed to oblivion food. And who could balme her? She has been watching all of us eat yummy food since she was born so she wanted to be like us and eat the same things.

So now at almost nine months old Jilly is eating whatever we eat. She was on a watermelon and strawberry kick for a bit but now she is really into veggies- zucchini, broccoli and cooked tomatoes. She also loves Cheerios (I break them into quarters), puffed wheat cereal and whole wheat bread. I tried yogurt but she hates it- she must think it's baby food. I have even *gasp* have given her a little peanut butter on wheat bread and scrambled eggs (I totally forget what part of the egg they say to hold off on). We have no family history of food allergies (except the infant allergic to milk thing) so I'm not worried at all about adverse food reactions though I do not recommend this route for everyone.

It really is nice at dinner time when we all sit down as a family and instead of Jilly playing in her play pen while we eat she gets to join us. You can tell she really enjoys it and her older brother and sister think it's cool that she can pick up food and eat it by herself. Soon she'll be using a spoon and throwing food all over the floor, walls and ceiling.

One more milestone down and many more to come!

I'm Lazy and I Made Baby Food!

I recently bought a five pound bag of pears at BJ's for about $6 and true to form I left them out on the counter for too long and let them over ripen. I put a few in the fridge for the older kids to eat over the next couple of days and decided to turn the rest into homemade baby food- how marvelously frugal of me!

I was never one to make baby food, mostly because I told myself that I didn't have time to. Well I guess I was wrong because it really takes no time at all to do! I used a baby food blender thing that I got on clearance for about $7 at Target when I was pregnant with Jilly Billy and within ten minutes I was able to peel/cut the pears, puree the pears and pour the puree into an ice cube tray.

I'm not sure how much cheaper it is to make your own baby food but in this instance I was saving money because I would have most likely thrown out the pears for spoiling before the older kids were able to eat all of them. Plus, there is something nice about knowing exactly how your baby's food is made.