Food at Daycare

Inevitably, 10pm rolls around and I realize I need to pack food for daycare. I always have a stash of pouches on hand, but I like to use those sparingly, preferring to put together my own menu for them. But in a pinch, pouches rule. I've used Target's Up and Up brand, as well as Ella's Kitchen and Plum Organics.

But seeing as we're trying to do less purees and more textured food, a la Baby Led Weaning, I don't use them often. I've begun encouraging the daycare workers not to mush the food up completely and spoon feed, but rather to just put it in front of the babies and let them try to figure it out. They do really well with Cheerios so I know they can do it, plus I've seen them tear into a banana and a piece of hamburger without issue. Unfortunately I don't think daycare is quite ready to give them big chunks of food, so little chunks or mashed food it is.

Indigo gets upset because he just wants the food in his belly, and can't always grasp it, so they usually end up spoon feeding him in the end. But Periwinkle gets her hands dirty and has fun with it. That's my girl!

So today I sent a little bowl with half a scrambled egg and a cut up strawberry, for each of them. They might need to be fed the strawberries as they are little slippery pieces, but I know they can mash them up just fine with their gums so they should be okay once they get them in their mouths. And the egg was in big enough pieces they should be able to pick them up. I'll see when I pick them up how they did... I was pretty proud of that little breakfast menu so I hope it was a success! I've never sent those items before, so it'd be nice to have this new option available in the future!

I also microwaved a sweet potato (a fairly small one) and mashed it up a bit (but not too much). They each got half a potato. I also sauteed some baby spinach (baby spinach for babies!) in some EVOO. What started out as two cups of spinach got reduced to about 1/4c. sauteed spinach each. I mixed that in with the potatoes, and I'm hoping they just grab it all with their hands and get nice and messy trying to eat it.

A lot of my twin mom friends say their babies are only drinking 24oz. of formula/breastmilk these days. Mine still drink 30-32oz. Fatties? I doubt it. I think they just aren't being forcefed three pureed meals a day so they are still relying on formula for their nutrition, which is as it should be right now. They are trying new foods, learning how to use their hands to feed themselves, and not necessarily filling up on solids. Which is the whole point of BLW. Food is fun until one!

Any other suggestions on fun foods I can send to daycare? Stuff that is easily mashable by little toothless (or nearly toothless) mouths but that they can still feed themselves?

A Letter to Periwinkle at Nine Months

Dear Periwinkle,

You got to celebrate your nine month birthday at the beach, on vacation with us, Grandma and Grandpa, your aunt and uncle and little cousin. Not bad!

With Indigo, Grandpa, and Grandma

 We did a little photo shoot on the beach with Uncle B the day before, with you in your red sun hat. You weren't in the best of moods, but you still looked adorable.

A shot by Grandma during your "photo shoot"

We went to the aquarium in Mystic that week, too. We weren't sure how much you would get out of it, but you seemed very intrigued by the stingrays and the penguins. You weren't quite sure what to make of the sea lions or little fish, and were just done with the whole thing by the time we hit the belugas, but we will definitely take you again sometime as you get older. You were both very well behaved, which was great. Even when a torrential downpour started up just as we went outside!

 

Oooh, penguins!

I feel like most of your achievements this month happened during that one week at the beach. You got ridiculously good at pulling yourself up to standing. It now seems like one of your favorite things to do. You lean over to me and try to grab on to me so you can pull up. So far though you still need to be holding onto someone's hands for you to be successful. When you get to standing you grin, so proud of yourself. Sometimes you even take a half step or two. And sometimes you think you can let go of our hands and end up back on your bum. But you always try again. Keep trying, little lady!

Standing with Grandma

You popped your second tooth that week, too. That's right, you have TWO teeth now! And plenty of drool-covered cloths and empty boxes of tissues to prove it. You had some ornery days (surprise, surprise) but generally came through like a champ. We're lucky it didn't really affect your sleeping at night (thank goodness). Your brother took care of that for you.

A chilly last day at the beach

You're eating a lot of foods, including cut up strawberries, scrambled eggs, toast, Cheerios, pieces of meat from whatever we are eating, and the trusty standbys of sweet potatoes and yogurt. Oh, and broccoli!

Happy little broccoli trees

You got very good at crawling backwards to get where you wanted to go this past month, and now can go forward, but that technically happened after your nine month birthday so we'll save that for next month's letter. Your hair is getting longer and thicker, and possibly lighter, and your eyes are almost totally brown now. I enjoyed your baby blues while they lasted!

A little curl! Brown eyes! So grown up!

You are still chatty and smiley in the morning. It just makes my day to see you grinning at me like that. I keep talking to you and doing some baby sign language and hope that soon you will be able to communicate with us a little bit. You raise your arms up when I go to pick you up, which I love. If you are on your tummy and you know I'm going to pick you up you still lift your arms and raise your chest up high so I can grab you. I'm convinced you will be a rock star at Pilates.

You enjoyed the Fourth of July and managed to sleep through the fireworks, thank goodness. You've gone in the pool several times, in a little orange float we got you. You need to stop kicking your legs because you will propel yourself OUT of the float, and that scares me a little bit. But you definitely enjoy the water. At the beach you seemed to want to jump out of our arms to go into the waves, and you were okay with getting your feet wet. We have a little fish on our hands. I was a little fish too.

On July Fourth

Ready to go in the pool!

I love seeing all the ways you are like me and all the ways you are so different from me. You are such an awesome little girl and I love you beyond words. Happy nine months, baby girl!

Love,
Mama

On the ferry en route to Rhode Island. You weren't quite sure how you felt.

Nine Months Old!

Periwinkle and Indigo turned nine months old last week while we were on vacation. I still have to write their letters for this month, but to tide you over until then, here are some adorable pictures from our week.

A chilly last day at the beach.

Under a tent on the beach

Small babies, big hats. Hilarity ensues.

Photo shoot on the beach.

Twins Teething

I expected teething to be hell with two of them. Yet Periwinkle has popped one tooth and is well on her way to at least one more with little more than some runny poo and mild crankiness. She's still sleeping like a champ, smiley in the morning, and in general her normal self. She lulled us into thinking teething might be easy peasy.

Indigo is another story. The only reason I can see for his recent misery is that he's teething. He doesn't let you look in his mouth or feel around for too long so it's hard to tell, but there seem to be at least two coming. As a result, he enjoys screaming in his crib. His voice is hoarse from crying so much the last few nights. He even cried this morning when we put him back in his crib so we could get dressed for the day. If you hold him he's pretty happy (a little too happy at 3am). If he's playing he's pretty happy. But step near the crib and watch out! Two nights ago he was up from 3 to 4:30am. Last night he took until 10:30pm to really fall asleep (normal bedtime: 6:30pm). Needless to say, Blue and I are rather tired. Fingers crossed for better sleep for all of us tonight. Although Periwinkle has been sleeping through all the crying just fine, lucky girl.

And we're just hoping she doesn't get any ideas about upping the crankiness meter. In this case, misery does not need any company.

Last night before the crying began

A Second a Day from Birth

A couple filmed their son, Indigo, for a second a day from the day of his birth up to his first birthday (can we say awesome name choice?). Set to a song from "Little Miss Sunshine," this video is going to get you teary and emotional. I promise.

I am trying to achieve some of this kind of emotional punch with the Project365 thing, which I now know I will need to put into a slideshow set to some kind of awesome song. And maybe for the next kid I will do video like this. Because this is seriously awesome.



A Second a Day from Birth. from Sam Christopher Cornwell on Vimeo.

A big thank you to Pregnant Chicken for bringing this video to my attention!

He Said "Mama"!

Indigo wasn't feeling too hot today, probably because he got his shots yesterday. When I went to pick them up at daycare, Miss S was holding him in her lap, and he looked snuggly, sleepy, and sad. Poor kiddo.

Once we got home, we got down with them on the floor for some playtime before their bottle. Indigo started whining (probably because Periwinkle kept trying to steal the turtle from him). I reached out to him and he reached back, grabbing on to me, and as I picked him up he whimpered out the most pathetic "Mamama."

I was done for. Blue can attest that I got a little emotional. And while I realize that he probably had no idea that he was referring to me, the context of his first "Mama" was enough to melt me.

And then he started to cry. Needless to say, within three minutes of being put to bed, he was out cold. This is pretty rare for him, so we know he was wiped out.

So, moral of the story? I will likely be a complete pushover for a while once they start intentionally calling out for Mama.

In a much better mood yesterday!

Fun Percentile Update

I found a website to give me percentiles based on their measurements.

For Indigo:

At 8 months:
your child is 18.25 pounds, and that is
at the 21th percentile for weight.
your child is 28.5 inches, and that is
at the 69th percentile for height.
your child has a head circumference of 17.7 inches, and that is
at the 46th percentile for head circumference.

So he's tall, like we thought. And has a pretty big noggin, like we thought.

For Periwinkle:

At 8 months:
your child is 17.2 pounds, and that is
at the 29th percentile for weight.
your child is 26.25 inches, and that is
at the 17th percentile for height.
your child has a head circumference of 17.1 inches, and that is
at the 40th percentile for head circumference.

So she's kind of petite, like we thought, but decently chubby. She definitely has rollier legs than Indigo. I love those chubby legs!!

Tomorrow they are having avocado and berry yogurt for their meals at daycare. I will be having banana bread at work, the smell of which is taunting me from the kitchen...