Eat: Part 2.

If you know me well you know that when I get into something I am all in. I rarely "dabble" in things. If I decide I'm gonna do something, I'm all in. This is what got me into the breast feeding predicament I talked about it my last blog. For example, for a short while I was an extreme couponer. The phase lasted less than a year, but during that time I spent a ton of time obsessing over printing coupons, reading coupon blogs, sorting coupons, stockpiling, etc. Back when I was a PP (pregnant pinterest-er), I was obsessed with organizing my boards in a way that would help me be a first time mom (unfortunately it was a lot of time misspent, since I don't really use them, but it kept me busy during those long 38 weeks).

It's this kind of obsession that sometimes keeps me from starting something because if I can't do something well, I don't like doing it at all. In my time browsing the "kids" section of pinterest, I came upon many pins about making your own baby food. I didn't really want to repin these pins because making your own baby food sounded like one of those things that I could easily become obsessed with, but I doubted that I would have time for. So when it came time to feed John Mark his first solids I decided we would just go with Gerber baby food. This would not only save this working mom a ton of time, but also I could collect their little plastic containers and the teacher in me was very excited about the limitless opportunities these containers provide for storing school goodies!

So John Mark ate pears, prunes, sweet potatoes, apples...Well one day I decided I would give him some bananas. When I peeled back the lid, I was beyond grossed out. This really potent, unnatural smell filled the air. If it smelled that bad, I couldn't imagine how it would taste. I decided right then and there I would at least consider making my own baby food. After some research, I realized how simple it is!

In the spirit of keeping it somewhat easy, I do use frozen fruits and veggies (along with some fresh like banana and avocado). Frozen works for me because I do not have to peel and core and because apparently frozen vegetables and fruits can sometimes be even more nutrient rich than store bought (depending on how long they've been sitting on the produce aisle). This website, wholesomebabyfood.com, really is amazing and explains everything. I don't even use a Baby Bullet or anything fancy. I just steam the veggies in the microwave and use my counter-sized food processor to blend it all up. The only equipment I've bought is ice cube trays for freezing 1 ounce portions. I still use pre-made food sometimes when we go out to eat (because the frozen stuff needs to be refrigerated until eaten....and because I still love to collect those plastic containers, haha!).

John Mark loves his food. He eats one fruit and one veggie two times a day. At daycare they laugh because they can only heat one at a time and he gets mad when he's waiting on his second portion to warm up. His favorites so far are sweet potatoes and pears, but he really loves it all (even the pre-made stuff).

Here's what he's had so far:
prunes
sweet potatoes
apples
pears
banana
avocado
peas
peaches
green beans
baby puffs
Mum Mums
frozen grapes (in a mesh feeder)
oatmeal cereal (FYI this is not necessary as they thought it was back when we were kids...it didn't work well on JM's little tummy, so new moms should know you can totally skip cereal)

Here are some photos of our food journey. It's hard to believe that in less than 5 months he won't be taking a bottle anymore and will be feeding himself full time!

 Turns out the peas don't really need to be strained...that was a disaster...