Feed Me

As money is tight I’ve been trying new recipes instead of relying on old favourites that may cost more, but one I had wanted to try for a while was risotto. It’s fairly labour intensive or rather it is kitchen intensive so it had to wait for a time when Tony was home and could stop Freya wrecking the place. It turned out really well. We had to use the loaded spoon technique, but she could pick out the chicken bits herself and I cooked some veg to go with it. It wasn’t actually any cheaper to make than some of the other things we have but it was so nice that we may have it again.

On the cooking front I have also been making soups. I haven’t tried the bread soaked in soup for weaning yet and there’s no way Freya is steady enough for loaded spoons of it so she had the chunks of meat and veg with a rice cake which went down very well. It was Thai chicken noodle soup so I dread to think how much salt ended up in it, but I didn’t add any extra salt (even though the recipe said to) and since she didn’t drink the soup itself I think it was ok. Besides, when you look at it over the course of the week, or even the day, I think it all evens out.

We are having a little trouble with our carpets. I have been sitting Freya on the floor for lunch as she has been pretty good at not making much mess, but unfortunately all those little bits of mess have added up and now our carpet is in a terrible state. Blame the lazy woman who can only wash up once a day and so the Bumbo is never clean for the lunch times. The worst culprit by far has been plum. It’s not helped by the fact that Freya often drops it and then skilfully sits in it. Really, her bum shifting accuracy scares me sometimes.

On the teething front we have two bottom front teeth and definitely something going on at the top. At the weekend we were woken up by screaming at 3am on both Friday and Saturday nights and it took much rocking, feeding and finally firmness to get her to go back to sleep. I know we are really lucky in that Freya has always slept through from an early age and so I never feel too bad about it. I know there are many unlucky parents out there with very wakeful babies.

Freya has two teeth now. The second one is coming through a bit crooked, but then she is my daughter so it’s not entirely surprising. I had to have a brace for two years for all the good it did me. As soon as my wisdom teeth came through my entire bottom set just went back as crooked as they ever were. I really hope she gets better treatment than I had if she needs it.

Food has still been going very well. I read about other people have blips and bumps, but as yet we haven’t had any although every day I expect her to turn around and just not eat anything. Even when she has a cold she loves solid food. I guess it’s easy to eat than her usual breast milk in some ways.

She was weighed at 8 months and hadn’t put on very much weight at all. She had dropped below the 9th percentile, if you take much notice of those things, but I am only mildly concerned. I know that I have a healthy, happy and hugely energetic little girl. She looks so long and slim though just like Daddy!

We went out for Tony’s Christmas meal on the 13th and I was really torn about leaving Freya. A friend of ours looked after her and I knew that Freya would be perfectly safe, but I was worried that she would cry the whole time we were gone and the friend would never look after her again or even never want to see us again!

I packed Freya a lunch of pasta, creme fraiche, sausage, chicken, courgette and red pepper. I threw the courgette and red pepper in the water that I was cooking the pasta in and it worked really well. I think I used chives and paprika. I wasn’t expecting her to eat much to be honest. I thought she would miss Mummy and Daddy too much but I made much more than I thought she would eat just to be on the safe side. To be honest it tasted so good that I wondered if our Christmas dinner was going to be as nice!

How wrong can you be? Not only was she grinning happily when we arrived to pick her up, she had eaten most of her dinner (a few lonely pieces of pasta and courgette hadn’t made it and lay strewn across the floor – sorry Emma) and she had only had a little grizzle once in the four hours we were gone. I was proud, relieved and perhaps oddly a little hurt. There is the realisation that actually she doesn’t need me and Tony as much as we would like to believe.

Anyway, Freya eats three meals a day now, even if we have to wake her up for dinner. The day we didn’t she woke at 11pm, was really angry and would not go back to sleep! Banana still seems to be the best food for breakfasting in bed (although she makes us laugh when she eats it) although she has been trying to steal some of our toast again lately.

Lunch remains pita breads, normally with cheese, carrot and cumin, as they are so very easy and I know that Freya will eat them and enjoy them. Plum for afters.

Dinner is whatever we have although I did give her fish the other day instead of burgers. Since Tony hates the smell of fish I was very careful about washing up straight away and dealing with Freya eating it. It seemed to be successful and Freya liked it. I’m glad, as fish is supposed to be good for them. Much more is going in now than ever before. We pick her up afterwards expecting to see stuff all over her legs but with the exception of rice there is very little mess. The other day I noticed that when she dropped something, even if it was seemingly on purpose, she would reach down and pick it up and continue eating.

Just one last tip – When your baby is eating and you want to take a photo, don’t leave the knife you were using to cut the pita breads up in front of them… :-p

We took Freya to Ikea for dinner and, knowing how much of our food we normally have to give her, gave her a plate of her own.  Five meatballs and two big boiled potatoes sat staring up at her next to her own dollop of lingonberry sauce.

The first thing she did was to take a large handful of sauce and eat it.  Even I would be hesitant to eat that sauce on its own, but that is what she did.  As expected, it was a little much for her and she did not like it.  She tried a meatball, but could not find the pruchase to open it.  I cut one open, she tried to swallow it whole.  She chewed half-balls quite well, but ended up spitting them out quite soon.

By now, the floor was looking like a meatball battleground; chip-spears (stolen from our plates) lay discarded by the gravely-wounded meatballs, who lay dying in little pools of lingonberry blood.  Some were barely wounded, others were torn asunder.  One or two had almost made it away from the carnage, only to lie inert in the path beside which this awful tragedy had taken place.

Freya herself looked like she had been in an accident of some kind; her face, hands and sleeves were red with sauce and red fingerprints decorated every pale surface within range.

She was brought home, bathed and put to bed eventually.

This morning, we discovered evidence of the event that we had been awaiting so eagerly.  This morning, we saw the first tooth to break free of its gummy captivity.  This morning, we brushed the sharp implement of destruction and nipple-mutilation.  And it is sharp.  I was not sure what I expected, but it hurt to run my finger along it, like a knife or prepared flint.  This thing, this incisor, could easily break skin and excise flesh.

My daughter is now armed, a warrior in the fight against the edible invaders…  She will find them in the dining room, she will eat them in the bedroom and she will nibble them in her buggy.  Never have so many foodstuffs had so much to fear from one small child…

Freya is teething. This time we’re sure of it. There are no teeth appearing yet, but she has had a rough few days. I think she may have a tummy bug too, but she just hasn’t been feeding from me. Last night she was picking up pasta and shoveling it in with the dexterity of a pro. I’m not sure if this is officially pincer grip but each individual piece is put into her mouth and chewed until it is no more. Hooray!

The ouch wasn’t for her necessarily though. With Freya not feeding very much yesterday, and not even having a milk feed last thing at night, my boobs are so engorged that it isn’t funny. We didn’t realise that it was teething though. This morning when she still wouldn’t latch on we tried a smear of Bonjella and about half an hour later she rooted for me and I was able to feed for a while before she fell asleep again. The scary thing is that was about 9.30am and she is still asleep now at 12.30pm. I have been checking on her and she is snoring gently but I can’t help worrying. Plus, one feed has done very little to alleviate my huge, solid, painful boobs!

Plums are the new favourite food by the way. Excellent for teething and juicy and sweet. Yummy!

Freya got her tooth through and then a canine, right? That’s odd, but I can live with it. Now I don’t know what is going on. The canine has gone again. How do teeth appear and then disappear? No-one told me about this. It’s now been missing for two days so I’ll assume it has changed its mind and doesn’t want to come through yet. Becoming a parent is full of mysteries.

As for food, we thought we’d go mad and let her have a tiny fairy cake all to herself. Oh, we know how to live dangerously in our house. It was holding together ok until she thrust it with both hands into her mouth and it exploded – over Tony, over the sofa, over the floor. As we’re really bright in this house we didn’t even have a bowl for it! It was amusing though and she played with the crumbs for a while, feeling the textures, clearly enjoying herself and that’s what it’s all about.

Dinner was cottage pie again. After the success of last time we tried this I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed that Freya fell asleep just before I served up. Ever the optimist, I put some aside for her and she did wake up just before it went completely cold. We tried the spoon again and I am still amazed at how quickly she has picked up which end goes where. She still doesn’t have the skills to load the spoon up herself, but once that’s done it goes straight in the mouth. She ate a fair amount of the meat and potato, but was happier just sucking on the spoon for the most part. I did have to turn the television off though as she would keep turning round in her bumbo to watch. I wouldn’t normally have it on at all, but I really like Strictly Come Dancing and so, it seems, does Freya.

See also:

Ok, I have read up on teething. I know that the first teeth to arrive are the two lower front ones, right? So not the canines. They come later. Not in my baby… I didn’t think anything when the first one came through but now I realise that the one on her right is so far away that the teeth coming through are canines. If they’re not then they are secondary incisors, still not the ones that are supposed to come through first. <sigh> I guess Freya wanted to do it her own way.

Last night Freya enjoyed sweet potato, courgette and carrot. I think she ate more than she has managed before and so we were quite happy. I would have been happier if I’d managed to get the vegetables out of the oven earlier as they did turn to mush very quickly but Freya seemed to really enjoy it. There was a moment when she got a rather large piece of courgette skin stuck to her tongue and we were waiting for her to spit it out, but this time she surprised us by swallowing it.

This morning we let her have a chomp on our breakfast of bagel and Philadelphia. I scraped most of the Philly off as we were in bed and I’ve only just changed the sheets and we know what a mess Philly can make.

see also: Breakfast 2

I swear I saw a tooth today. Only when I tried to show Tony, Freya kept her mouth tightly shut. Eventually when we managed to get her to open her mouth there was no tooth. Hmm. For a brief moment I was very proud and then Tony pointed out that this would then be the start of brushing her teeth, dentist appointments and various procedures for the rest of her life. You see neither of us had very good teeth. Tony has had many removed and I had a brace for two years. I just hope that hers are better than ours.

Lunch. I was very, very lazy today and was going to have a pita bread and a cheap instant noodle meal. I didn’t think I would do anything for Freya as I didn’t think she would be that interested. Oh, boy was I wrong! As soon as I came into the lounge clutching my pathetic lunch her face lit up and she grinned. I ate some but the hopeful, excited look was too much for me in the end and so I sat her down in her Bumbo. The tray was still dirty from last night so we went without and she had some of my pita bread. She did very well with it and seemed to enjoy it. I therefore ended up with half a pita bread and a pot noodle for lunch. Lesson learnt.