Olivia and The Avocado

Like all parents, Mike and I have been so excited by every milestone our child has achieved. Last week, on her 6 month birthday we were so excited that we could start feeding The Boss Lady food! Until now she's been a breastmilk only baby. We were both so excited to reach this stage!

I was excited because I knew it would be a fun adventure to watch her try new things and I think Mike was excited because he can take part in her feedings a little more.

Oddly, I felt a lot of emotions around this milestone. I mean, it's just food, right? Wrong. As I'm learning in this new adventure, most things have a lot of emotions surrounding them. I love watching my kiddo go through all of these stages but it's always sort of bittersweet. The fact that she's at an age where she can start eating real food is proof that she's not this tiny little baby anymore. She's growing up and super fast!

And I love that I am still able to breastfeed her and that's she's been a breastmilk baby so far. But I have mixed feelings about that too. With this whole food thing, that means we are one step closer to her not needing me anymore. Don't get me wrong, I'm super excited to have my boobs back to myself! However, there is something so wonderful about nursing my daughter. I love that closeness with her. I love how excited she gets to eat, how she tries to gnaw through my shirt when she's hungry. I love how she rubs the back of her head as she nurses and how she'll sometimes catch my eye from the corner of hers and give me a huge grin, milk dripping down the side of her cheek.

I know that this food adventure is going to be just as special though. Mike talks about us cooking dinner together as a family and teaching Oli about making healthy foods. I also look forward to the days where we can sit at the dinner table together and share a meal as a family.

So in preparation for our big milestone, on Thursday after work I headed to the grocery store for rice cereal, avocado, butternut squash, and carrots. I've been a reading a little about baby's first foods and a lot of people recommend avocado. And I'm going to attempt to make my own baby food, hence the squash and carrots.

That's a whole other issue: making my own baby food. I do try to eat healthy but to be honest, I'm not a big organic person. In fact, I'm not an organic person at all. Quite frankly, I've always thought it was a waste of money. I know, I know, pesticides and all of that. But, I just never think about it when I'm at the grocery store.

Yet, suddenly, as I started thinking about what Olivia would be eating, organic has become something I'm considering. And making my own baby food? What the heck is that about?!?!? Why do I suddenly feel compelled to do THAT?? A lot of the reason is because it is a money saver to make your own. The bunch of carrots I bought was $1 and can probably make several meals. Also, Mike and I eat a lot of fresh veggies so I'm hoping that eventually, she can just eat what we do. We'll see how this all plays out though. I told a friend I was going to do this and she said "Wow, I wish I was that ambitious." Well, I'm not sure I'm that ambitious either. If it turns out to be a big pain the butt, I have no problem switching to those cute little jars. Anyway, the ingredients in those are just veggies and water which is what I would be making.

See, all of these crazy thoughts and feelings over a little bit of food! Jeez. Bet you can't wait to see how long the blogpost is when she goes to kindergarten!

As soon as Mike got home Thursday night, we started getting things ready! I mashed up the avocado and mixed the rice cereal with a little breastmilk. We did NOT combine the two but we wanted to have both options in case she liked one over the other. I tried the cereal and it tasted a little funky so I was hoping she'd be a bigger fan of the straight avocado.

We sat down, got the video camera ready and got a huge surprise when our sweet girl hated BOTH! She gagged like it was the most offensive thing she had ever tasted and then she threw it all up. We tried just the rice cereal on Friday night and got the same reaction.

On Sunday, I mashed up some banana and tried that. Same reaction.

Today, I spent part of the day researching different ways to introduce solids. I checked out wholesomebabyfood.com and I put our situation out into the Facebook world. I got some great advice thanks to many of my other mom-friends. One of the strategies I'm interested in is called baby led weaning. I still need to do some research but basically, you just let the child control their own food. So, if you are eating carrots, give them some. If you are eating peas, give them some. But put it on their tray or plate and let them feed themselves.

Since my kiddo is a little bit of a control freak when it comes to her food (wonder where she gets that??), I thought maybe this might be a good option for us.

Tonight, we bought a high chair and sat her at the table with us when we sat down to eat dinner. I mashed up a banana and put it in front of her. While she had a great time squishing it between her fingers, she never once put it in her mouth. I tried to help with the spoon. She gagged. She puked. My dinner was interrupted cleaning up the high chair and her. *Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths*

We tried some babyfood bananas. No go. Then we mixed some breast milk with rice cereal and some of the banana babyfood. It smelled like puke. I tasted it and when I did Mike gagged. Then I gagged. Because it not only smelled like puke, it tasted like puke. Lo and behold, SHE FREAKIN' LIKED IT!!!

She wasn't gobbling it down or anything but she wasn't making the crazy gagging face and she was laughing and smiling the whole time. Most of it ended up down her chin and on her clothes but she really seemed happy with it all.

When I got up from the table, I smelled the bottle that had the milk in it. It smelled rotten. It had been in the fridge since Friday so it should have been okay. But it smelled rotten. I think, no I'm pretty sure, it was rotten. Great, we just fed our child rotten breast milk. AND SHE LIKED IT!!!

Crazy, crazy baby.

We are going to try a few more times with this whole food thing. BUT, if she still acts like she isn't interested, we're going to wait a little while longer. And that's okay. I'm not in a huge rush for all of these milestones anyway! ;)

She loved the bowl and the spoon but NOT the contents!