Showing posts with label Food Adventures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food Adventures. Show all posts
Accept + Laugh + Support

8. accept
What imperfection did you come to accept in your life in 2013? How will you embrace it more in 2014?
I've always been a bit of a stickler when it comes to having things make sense, or be in order. It stresses me out when things are messy or when things don't work when {or how} they're supposed to.  2013 was the year of motherhood - aka - absolutely nothing going as planned. Georgia has taught me how to go with the flow, and I'm already feeling more relaxed about things leading into the new year. Let's hope it continues! :)
9. laugh
Tell us about your biggest belly laugh in 2013!
Oh, we have had so many. So, so many. Watching Georgia, the queen of crazy faces, experience new foods across the year; that definitely takes the cake. I just have to share this little collage, because honestly, this kid is HILARIOUS. {If you want to see the whole thing, plus hear the sound - click on the image & you'll be taken to the full collage.}
10. support
How did you volunteer your help last year? What will you do this year?
The support I have received from the infertility community has been priceless - and I'd like to think that I was also able to volunteer some help/love/advice to those around me during that time too. This year, I'm going to continue with this, but also think locally too - donating to local charity shops, offering help for new mums I've met with little ones, and being a good listener to those who need it.

Plugging Away

We have been plugging away at solids for the better part of a month.
So far, Georgia has loved most new foods - but wasn't a fan of avocado or broccoli. They're not so bad when mixed in with other veggies - looks like we'll be hiding them in & disguising the taste. :)

Other than that, things have been fairly quiet around here. Lots of time spent with hubby while he's been working from home - watching Georgia fall in love with her daddy is just gorgeous. I don't want to jinx things, but she's been so good with other people lately, lots of smiles and cheerful chats. I hope that continues.

Our nights have been getting better, and we're plugging away at the day sleeps. She is well and truly into size 00 and the hot weather has let me experiment with short sleeved/legged rompers and suits - loving being able to get those thighs into the sunlight. This age is fantastic. And I'm sure it's only going to get better!

Solid Food Adventures - Apple & Zucchini!

First up, hi lovely ICLW-ers! Thanks for stopping by - it's always nice having my inbox flare up with comments from new faces. This little blog was started a few years ago, originally about life in Australia as a primary school teacher. It evolved as I did, following my journey into living in England, travelling the world, living with PCOS and planning our wedding. When we started our TTC journey, we knew it'd be a challenge {see the aforementioned PCOS diagnosis!} but we didn't realise just HOW hard it would be. Here on the blog, I talked about our infertility adventure, which moved into IVF and our eventual BFP. Life has been crazy, and we are so, so lucky to have welcomed our baby daughter, G, into the world in March this year.

G is 25 weeks old now, and an absolute delight. We're having some difficulties with sleeping at the moment, but that is a topic for a whole new post. As for EATING, however - no problems there. Guzzle guts is loving her foray into solid foods. After three days of sweet potato, and three days of pear, we moved into a new veggie: zucchini!

She wasn't particularly sold on the taste - to be fair, neither am I. It does go quite watery on its own, too. After the first day on it, I mixed up with sweet potato to give it a bit more texture. That went down much nicer.

After that, we moved to apple. That's usually a safe bet in terms of first impressions - I may or may not have been stealing mouthfuls of her puree while it was being warmed up. (Mwahahahaha.) Funnily enough, she pulled a few faces at the start; maybe she was expecting zucchini again and was shocked by the sweet flavour? But as soon as she got going, she had that mouth open like a baby bird - gobbled it up. At one point, she was leaning so far forward towards the food bowl that she almost had her nose in it. A definite hit!
Georgia is still breastfeeding at her normal 3-4 hourly feeds, and we do solids around lunchtime. As we have tried more and more combinations, we'll be increasing to breakfast time as well. So exciting! :)

Solid Food Adventures - Sweet Potato & Pear!

It's time: Let the messy eating begin! We started solids a few days ago. Very, very gently - one ice cube (so a few spoonfuls) at a time & the same solid over a couple of days, so we can monitor for any potential reactions.

Sweet potato was up first, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. Wasn't sure about the spoon, and that took a little while to get used to, but I was surprised at how much she actually swallowed. On the third day of sweet potato, Georgia threw a temper tantrum and wanted more - so we ended up having two cubes. She was happy afterwards. :)

Today was a new solid: Pear!
She was a little puzzled at first, I think because she was expecting the sweet potato taste she had come to like! Once she'd gotten her mouth around the first few spoons, she polished it off pretty quickly.

I'd heard from a few mum friends that fruits like pear/apple were good to, er, get things moving - and it did the trick! After a few days of quiet on the bum front, today brought us some action. My first nappy change after purées - very interesting. ;)

We'll be doing pear for a few more days, and then will switch to a different veggie/fruit. At the moment, she's only having this one taster meal per day, which is usually around lunchtime. After Georgia has had a few different tastes, I'll be adding in a little rice cereal with fruit mixed in as a breakfast meal.

Prepping for Solids v.2

I did some more fruit & veggie shopping yesterday, since I was in the zone. :)

  • 5x pears = 1 tray. It's a bit of a gritty puree, as pears tend to be, but nice and sweet.
  • 6x small parsnips = 0.8 of a tray. Surprisingly, they smell stronger than they taste. I've never eaten them on my own before, only mixed in soups and stews. I let Georgia lick my finger after I pureed them, and she didn't seem too fazed. (She would have only gotten a microscopic amount, though.)
  • 6x zucchinis = 1.4 trays. They were VERY watery, and smell gross.
  • 1x can of peaches = 1.6 trays. It's not quite peach season here & I couldn't find frozen ones, so this had to do for now. I made sure to buy the organic kind in their own juice, no extras in there.
  • 1x bunch of spinach leaves = 0.8 trays. Even mixed with boiled water to blend, this mixed down to nothing.
I've got a nice little freezer stash of solid foods ready to go - bring on the weekend!!!!

Prepping for Solids

We opted to wait until nearer to 6 months before we started Georgia on solid foods. I wanted her to get as much benefit from breastfeeding as possible, especially since our start was a little rocky. Since she's found her groove and I want to keep my supply up, I saw no reason to rush into things. Plus, Georgia was born a little over 3 weeks early, so there was no harm in waiting that little bit longer.

She's currently almost 24 weeks old & has started becoming VERY intent on food. She watches us eat closely, grabs for drinks when she's in your arms, and wants to touch everything. She's also been a bit fussier than usual when feeding, crying, carrying on, and guzzling down her expressed milk top-up before bedtime. All those things lead me to believe that she's needing something more - so it's nearly time!
Jason is still working interstate Monday-Friday, so I'm waiting until he's home this weekend before we start giving her the first taste of real food - she'll only start solids once, and I want him to be here for it!

The goal is to start with purees (as well as rice cereal/porridge mixed with breast milk), check for allergic reactions, and then move on to more 'formed' foods once we know she can tolerate them well. Hubby had a few intolerances as a child, so we are being fairly conservative - one new food item for 3 days, before moving on to something new & then mixing and matching.
What I've learned so far:
  • Pumpkin when pureed is lovely and sweet. I may have snuck a few teaspoons into my mouth while cleaning up.) It doesn't seem to make as much as I imagined it would though. 2x chunks of pumpkin = 1.3 trays.
  • Sweet potato yields quite a bit! I only had two and used them both, and it made a fair amount. 2x sweet potatoes = 1.4 trays.
  • Apple sauce! Why haven't I ever made homemade apple sauce before? YUM! 5 cored apples = 1 tray.
  • Carrots need quite a bit of boiled water added to make them blend well. They also make LOADS. 4 carrots = 1.6 trays.
I need to go fruit/veggie shopping! Need some non-orange items so that Georgia doesn't turn into an oompa loompa. 





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