Adventures in Pureeing, Take 2

Here's the tally of what I've pureed so far:

• Sweet potatoes -- easy to puree



• Carrots -- the trick is to buy real carrots then chop them up into little pieces then boil, then puree -- it still takes forever, but a bit less forever than pureeing baby carrots



• Cauliflower, super easy to puree (but Mr. Meh hated it. The freezer is still full of it)



• Broccoli -- easy to puree



• Peas -- easy to puree but a bit challenging to find frozen peas with no salt added to them. At least that was the case at Whole Foods. The third package I picked up was just peas, nothing added.



• Rutabaga -- hard to puree, gave up, Andy and I ate it instead (It was quite tasty though)



• Spinach -- easy to puree, but all that spinach turns into nothing



• Apples -- for someone who doesn't like the taste or smell or raw apples, peeling these babies bothered me but I persevered. Pureeing was easy. Mr. Meh loved them.

Pureeing as an art form

Who knew that the color of pureed food is so pure and intense. Like having my own crayolas. It was quite an artistic experience. I felt like I should take artsy photos of each individual pureed veggie dollop against a white background and then enlarge and frame for some cool photos.

Carrots are an intense orange. Sweet potatoes also organge but a bit more muted. Peas are bright, bright green. Spinach is very dark green, and broccoli are mid-green with some added white, making it quite mute. Apples are kind of light and not memorable. And cauliflower is of course a pure white.

It was bound to happen

About a week ago, Andy called me at work sounding rather composed.

He had put Mr. Meh on the web and went to pee when he heard a thump. Mr. Meh had rolled off the bed onto the carpet. Apparently he didn't cry or seemed upset. He proceeded to play and laugh as he usually does.

We don't think Andy damaged the baby. I'm just glad that it wasn't me to whom this happened because I'd be freaking out. I'm already distraught at the fact that when he was two weeks old that I dropped my cell phone on his head while he was nursing, and then when he was 5+ months old I sat him down and let him topple over onto his face (he was sitting on the carpet, but it was a rather thin carpet on hardwood floors). And once he fell over backwards onto his back while he was sitting down on thick basement carpet.

Later I shared the falling off the bed story with other moms of young children. Apparently it's like a rite of passage. Everyone has a horrific "I dropped the baby" story. And all of these babies lived throught these traumas unscathed.

Sleeping In

When I called Andy at work around 1 p.m. to tell him that I was leaving work early to go home since I had actually taken a vacation day today but forgot about it, he informed me he wanted to sleep in tomorrow morning.

That's why when you're about 9+ months pregnant and ready to pop, people issue a warning "you'll be sleep deprived when that baby arrives" and "better catch up on that sleep now before the baby comes." As if it's that simple to sleep with 35 extra pounds attached to your front: it's impossible to sleep on your stomach due to the extra load, impossible to sleep on your back because all that weight arches your back so much that it hurts, which leaves sleeping on your side. For me, however, even with all extra cushions properly placed between the knees and supporting the belly, I could only sleep so much before my hipbone on which I was laying would start to hurt and the opposite butt cheek (the one high up in the air) would get all stiff and sore, as if I were doing butt cruches in deep sleep.

But what people don't tell you is that sleep deprivation is cummulative. We're more tired now at six and a half months than we were at birth. Between the baby who wakes up on average every two-three hours between 7 p.m. and 5:40 a.m. -- sometimes to nurse, other times just because to cry-- the dog who between 2-4 a.m. starts her musical whining demanding to be let in the back yard, sometimes to pee, other times to bark into the night (and if she's not barricaded upstairs in the room with us but we by some omission leave her in the living room, she'll just pee on the carpet), and our otherwise quite pleasant neighbor who in the last two years since we moved in has been consistently doing some nightly house and yard repair -- he must be either digging for treasure or burying dead bodies -- we have not gotten more than an hour or possibly an hour and a half of sleep at night.

That's why Andy requested to sleep in tomorrow morning.
"But we are going to meet Kris and Alex for breakfast at 9 am tomorrow," I replied. Nine am was the strategically chosen hour when the baby will be awake and the breakfast/brunch crowd will have not risen yet. Since teh baby "woke up" at about 3 months, we really haven't taken him to any public eating spaces. It just seemed like too much of a hassle, trouble and work.

"Oh that's fine," Andy responded. "I was thinking like sleeping in 'til 8."

Silly me, who still thinks that sleeping in implies waking up at the crack of noon.

Adventures in Pureeing

Mr. Meh started eating solid foods a few weeks ago. First it was rice cereal with breastmilk. The menu then expanded to include sweet potatoes and carrots for a week or so. THey he got some butternut squash. This week cauliflower, peas and bananas were added to the mix.

After trying to figure out what's all that about -- trying to grab the spoon with both hands and put both hands and the spoon in the mouth while reaching for the jar -he really liked the cereal. He was equally crazy about sweet potatoes and carrots.

He likes eating so much that if there is more than a second gap between spoonfulls he gets cranky and demands the food. Taps his little hands on the high chair tray. And when he does that, all I keep picturing in my head is Pink Floyd and "you won't get any pudding...."

But then yesterday when we tried feeding him cauliflower. After two spoon attempts he promptly spit it out. Didn't like it. Later in the day he was served peas. He scarfed them down. The squash was so, so.....I didn't puree it, just mashed it. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Today, he was introduced to a banana. He liked it but not as much as the veggies.

It's so funny to think that such a little being -- only six months old -- has such distinct likes and dislikes.

Pureeing
I guess I'm more granola than I let on. I decided to make and puree all the food more Meh. I'm really enjoying it. I think. I think it's really the idea of pureeing than I enjoy that the actual process, but hey it's only been a few weeks.

I guess it's the extension of breastfeeding. So far I've been exclusively breastfeeding. And now I don't want to let go. I don't want to introduce formula. It someone seems sacrilegous to do so. Although I know that I eventually will have to. I'm slowly losing milk, the pump is doing a number on my nipples, and ultimately it's really distracting to do it twice at work.

So, I've been pureeing food. Sweet potatoes were kind of easy -- difficult to peel and chop (but I knew that from before), but once they're cooked (which takes forever) they are easy to mash.

However, no one told me about carrots. I cooked baby carrots. And cooked them, and cooked them. Finally after 1/2 hour I decided they were done. And the pureeing nightmare started. It took me almost one hour to puree the baby carrots and I still ended up with a few unpureed bits (which I ate. why throw out a perfectly good carrot). Next time I decided to cut the carrots up in small pieces and then boil them.
Maybe that will be this weekend's project.

I first need to boil spinach, broccoli and rutabaga that I bought. So far I couldn't get myself to spend another night batch-pureeing. There are still peas and sweet potatoes and cauliflower to finish up.

Return of Aunt Flow

Two-three weeks ago, Aunt Flow came back.

Actually, it was more like Aunt Trickle, visiting just for a day. In any case it took my by surprise. I forgot about it. I also forgot what to do about it.

As I was getting ready to for work, I had to think hard of all the accessories I'd have to take with me to accommodate with Aunt Trickle. I had to remember where my stash of pads and tampons was (always in the same place, under the sink) and what I was supposed to do with them.

Big boy tears and real hugs

Real Tears
As of a few weeks ago, every time Meh cries, he's been crying "real" tears, ie the corners of his eyes get all watery with tears. It's no longer just a piercing wailing cry, but real tears. It makes his suffering -- although half the time he's not really crying out of need but just want -- so much more real and so painful for us.

Real Hugs
On the other hand, he's also been giving us real hugs. He's not longer just a sack of dead weight potatoes when I pick him up, but now he extends his arms wanting to be picked up. Then once in my arms, he actually puts his arms around my neck and hugs me back. (Unless he's trying to pull on my hair, grab my nose, gouge my eye out or sqeeze my cheek)

First Food

Meh is about to turn six months this week. Yesterday we gave him rice cereal for the first time. Today we fed it to him twice. He scarfed it down.....kept holding the spoon and licking it, wouldn't let go of the spoon (started getting angry with me).

It was the cutest thing. He was so happy, he was devouring the food and the spoon with his mouth, hands and eyes. It was a full body experience. It's so enchanting to see how much pleasure and excitement introducing something -ie food- we take for granted.

It was also very sticky and messy. Since he's mine, there is nothing I can do but just clean him up thoroughly. Although that's easier said than done. This is what I feared --- the onset of stickiness: sticky fingers, sticky face, dirty clothes.....just overall stickiness. And there is no way around it. No way to make him not stick his hands into it and it be spread all over his face, hands, bib, clothes and the high chair.

It wasn't the poop (and there have been so many poopy diapers not to mention poop explosions all the way up to his shoulder blades) and even not so much the spit up that's getting me, but this stickiness is what I didn't look forward to. (There haven't been any puke incidences or runny noses yet. Although a few times I had to pull buggers out of his nose. And although he's my kid, a bugger is still a bugger, and it was gross.)

But I obviously adore him regardless of all my squimishness.