Chicken is an odd duck...

Actually, I don't know that she's odd since I don't spend time eating meals with other 10 month-olds. She is quirky though! When we went out to dinner last week, she wolfed down about 8 slices of cucumber. Since then, she hasn't eat any! Today, I gave her some with lunch and she just tore all of the slices into little pieces. She'd use all of her strength to tear them and then laughwhen the seeds shot out. (It's a good thing I have a sense of humor about these things!) She was also eating about 4 or 5 slices of cantaloupe each morning and now won't eat any. I guess she'shad her fill!

The other funny thing she's been doing is eating foods off a spoon that she won't eat otherwise. If her dad or I put peas, green beans, etc on a spoon, she'll eat them. She's also been trying to place bits of food on her spoon and eat things that way. I need to do some research about how to help her eat with utensils. She seems happier eating from a spoon than with her hands these days.

I guess it's good that she does so well with a spoon. She's had a nasty cold for a few days and has had difficult nursing and less appetite than usual for solids. I've been giving her purees whenever I can as an attempt to get some good stuff in her.

Today's menu:

breakfast -2 strips of blueberry pancake (frozen from a weekend a breakfast weeks ago), yogurt, blueberries, pureed pears

lunch - bits of rotisserie chicken, green beans, some bits of leftover salmon, the rest of the pears

dinner- a few tastes of shredded pork, some mixed vegetables, organic tater tots, some spoonfuls of pureed carrots

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ok, so the wish is a day late, but this post is about our romantic dinner out. Chicken's dad took Chicken and me to a local Irish pub for dinner. We aren't big on Valentine's Day around here, so it was fitting that the whole place was already decorated for St. Patrick's Day. We went early - around 5:30 after Chicken had a good nap. As has been the case in the past, Chicken was a lovely dining companion!

I had a side salad and offered Chicken the cucumber slices that were on top. She devoured them so the waitress was kind enough to bring more. For her entree, Chicken had some of my fish 'n chips (just the flaky cod without the fried stuff), some steamed potatoes, a few bits of her dad's burger, some steamed broccoli and a container of yogurt. I really didn't have to bring the yogurt, because Chicken is usually fine with whatever her dad and I get, but I knew she'd eat the yogurt and be happy so it was a little insurance that she'd be content.

We've started offering Chicken water more regularly with meals at home and have been doing so while out as well. We just get some water into a straw, stop up the top end with a finger and slowly release the suction once Chicken has the bottom end in her mouth. She LOVES drinking water this way. I'll have to get a photo next time!

P.S. Chicken doesn't dine with her hat on...We were getting ready to leave when I thought to snap a photo.

The same...but different.

Tonight's post is about tonight's dinner. I made "salsa chicken", which is probably the world's easiest recipe. You take chicken breasts and salsa, dump it in the slow cooker and turn the thing on. The result is super most chicken that is flavorful and easily shredded. Chicken's dad and I had nachos, but in an effort to minimize Chicken's sodium intake, she had a modified version. She had the salsa chicken, but with cheesy polenta instead of the chips. She also had some cucumber, some yellow squash, a container of pureed sweet potatoes and half an avocado. Yes, we're still offering some purees since she's fickle about vegetables... and I'm neurotic.

This post seems short, so I'll add the rest of Chicken's menu for today:

Breakfast: organic quick oats with apple butter and cinnamon, blueberries, a few bits of pineapple

Lunch: Toast with cream cheese, pureed peas, mixed vegetables(green beans, peas, corn, carrots - she didn't eat too much of that) and a pear.

Superbowl Sunday

I'm kicking myself because Chicken did some great eating today and I didn't get photos of any of it!

We went out to breakfast this morning and she was an eating machine! We got fruit to start and, as usual, we couldn't get it to her fast enough. She ate a ton of blueberries, some honeydew, some mango and a few bites of banana. Then she had some pancake, scrambled eggs and multi grain french toast. I think she would have kept eating anything we put in front of her, so I pulled out some cantaloupe slices that I had brought from home. We're noticing that she seems to want to keep eating as long as we're eating. I'd prefer that she eat more fruit than more carbs, like pancakes.

I made a quick soup for lunch. It was just chicken broth, a box of frozen soup vegetables (potatoes, spinach and asparagus), chopped carrots and cannellini beans. She tossed most of the carrots right away, which is so strange because she loves pureed carrots. She was slow to eat the other stuff at first, so I offered her some pear and a bit of Swiss cheese. She gobbled those up and then went to town on the stuff from the soup.

Since our team wasn't playing tonight, we didn't do anything big. I made nachos and pigs in blankets because the Superbowl is a good excuse for junk. We ate our junk before the big game so that Chicken could eat before bed. She did not have any pigs or blankets, but did have the taco turkey that I used for the nachos, plus some "chips" that I made. I just tore up whole wheat lavosh, sprayed it with olive oil and baked it. She had some humus with her "chips". I steam some baby zucchini for all of us. Chicken nibbled on them and seemed to enjoy them.

She ate a variety of foods today, including more carbs than usual but definitely lots of fruits and vegetables. The fruit this morning and the soup vegetables weren't organic, but we just do the best we can!

Join us for lunch!

I haven't been keeping up with blogging as much as I'd like. I think part of it is because Chicken is eating well and there haven't been any major developments lately. I decided to video tape her eating lunch today so you can see how she's doing. Lunch today was: leftover roasted zucchini, cucumber spears, cantaloupe and deli turkey. I've never given Chicken deli meat before, but we made a trip to Wegmans and they had organic, all natural deli turkey, so I got some for myself and figured Chicken could try it too. It was easy for her to eat because it tore up into little pieces easily. She enjoyed the turkey and the cantaloupe. She kept signing for more cantaloupe and ended up having four slices! **Blogger keeps rejecting my video. Stay tuned.**

I also want to share an article that I found linked on the blog: http://www.baby-led-solids.blogspot.com/