Day 76 – BLW

So, life is crazy and kinds scary for us right now. Eric is home working from the home office he’s set up and we are trying to stay home as much as possible. He only goes to the store when we absolutely need something and right now that’s been about once a week since some things aren’t available when he goes or we aren’t able to buy the normal amount. But only Eric leaves the house now a days.

The good thing that has come from him working from home is that he gets to see more of Malina’s milestones and she’s been packing them in the last few weeks. Three new teeth (with a fourth threatening its appearance), she crawls on hands and knees now, she can pull herself up to a kneeling and standing position, she cruises and walks with assistance, she can climb onto things, and she’s started to say “mama” to get our attention or call for us (win for team Mama too). She’s also started to try to say other words but nothing solid enough to consider intentional, and she has started to try to get into a seated position while rolling (which she is really close to accomplishing).

All of this she’s managed to learn and do in the last three weeks. It keeps me busy at least and this is the best time to be busy.

We’ve also decided to transition Malina to three meals a day, mainly because she was getting really angry that she didn’t have food when we sat to eat dinner and I felt bad.

That being said, I plan to post daily summaries from now on. I hope to also deal with the back log of older posts (which includes a few recipes and resources) some time soon. It’s just been hard to find the time recently.

So, breakfast today was pork gyoza, quartered fresh strawberries, and steamed broccoli. Malina still does well with all of these. She’s also developed a particular love of fillings and noodles, so the gyoza are a favorite since they offer both.

For lunch, we tried goat cheese and tomato raviolis with a side of frozen cherries.

Malina likes goat cheese normally, but this filling wasn’t great for her. She pulled out chunks of the filling and ate the pasta. She did love her cherries however.

Then at dinner I made us Scarpetta’s Spaghetti. It’s a recipe I’ll include in a separate post (soon hopefully) that is really amazing. The sauce is just the right consistency to coat the noodles but not drown them. It’s also flavorful without being overpowering.

Malina loved it.

That being said, today was a good food day as Malina tried everything and ate a good amount of what she was offered. She loves food and is becoming a great eater. Pluto is now suffering (in his opinion) because she doesn’t throw him as many scraps anymore.

So remember, even when things are uncertain, you are doing great and you’ve got this! And I hope you and yours are well and safe.

-Erica

Day 61 – Breakfast

So with me dealing with the old posts that I’ll be back dating and posting at some point I’ve been thinking about how I plan to handle future posts. Between dealing with a more mobile baby who is having trouble sleeping and everything else it’s crazy to think we’re two months in now and that we’ll be starting to introduce a consistent second meal.

So the plan I’ve come up with is to make a summary post for the day. I’ll take my usual pictures and post the plate and any highlight photos.

This method will allow me to not get swamped with posts and probably shorten post length if not keep it about the same.

Either way we’ll see how it works when I start implementing it.

So yeah, on to our breakfast.

Today I introduced Malina to a new food – mango.

Me and her papa both like mangos and they are a big part of our summer diet. But when I saw them in the grocery store I had my husband pick some up. It took two weeks for them to ripen and today was the day we sliced it up.

Malina also had stewed carrots from our dinner last night and scrambled eggs. The picture shows slices of the pear loaf but it was stale (found out before baby when I tried my piece) and so I took it away.

The first thing she went for was the carrots. I’d given her some the night before and she’s always done well with them in the past so I wasn’t surprised.

She liked it. I stewed them last night as a part of our corned beef and cabbage. They make excellent leftovers and I figured it would make a nice breakfast veggie.

The next thing she went for were the scrambled eggs.

“I like your scrambled eggs today mama.”

And she ate them.

Perhaps it wasn’t her papa making them but just being introduced to them again at a later time that improved her stance on the scrambled egg. Either way she liked it so it’s a win.

Finally she went for the mango.

So I was uncertain how to serve this. I diced up two slices and left another two for her to pick up.

She messed with them and managed to get a bite off the longer slices but I started to feel bad. So I offered her one of my slices with the skin still on.

Instant success.

With the skin she was able to hold the piece easier and eat more of the fruit. And she ate a lot of it in comparison to the rest of her meal. So in the future I’ll offer her slices with the skin on it so she has something to hold on to.

So remember, even when you don’t know the best way to serve something new just trust yourself and baby, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Day 60 – Breakfast

Things have been really busy here. Malina is teething, has learned how to crawl, also she’s having a sleep regression, and on top of that she is mastering pulling herself up to a standing position.

So all the baby proofing we didn’t finish while I was pregnant had become necessary to do. We are also learning about all the little things we didn’t expect to be worried about when it comes to Malina’s health and safety.

I never thought I’d have to worry about the baby going for the shoes and trying to eat them.

But that aside I’ve also been dealing with other things that have prevented me from working on the blog.

So I’m back logged and though I have the pictures picked out and edited, as well as the outlines and notes to write the posts all set up, I rather do this update and worry about those posts when I have time again to deal with them.

So, without further preamble. I present today’s breakfast!

Croissant, chicken breakfast sausage, steamed broccoli, and blueberries in plain yogurt.

Malina has become quite the carnivore and so it was no surprise that she went straight for the breakfast sausage.

She liked it a lot. She’s actually been doing really well with eating more of her food too and she managed half of the entire sausage this morning before moving on to one of her favorites.

Broccoli.

I haven’t gotten her to eat more than the tops yet but Malina has a great love for her broccoli. It works out too since she needs the iron.

Next, she tried the croissant.

“The french say ‘qua sawn t’, so the ‘r’ is silent. Just so you know, I’m a trilingual baby after all.”

I left it while so she could pick it up and get a feel for it. This was good for her experience with it but she was irritated with how it smashed together in her hand and as a result she surprised herself when she tore a piece off.

The surprise wore off though and she managed to eat a couple bites of the small piece.

She tatted poking at the yogurt next and I handed over her spoon with some loaded on.

“Today I’m using the right side of the spoon. Happy?”

Despite the teething, Malina actually used her spoon to eat and didn’t do too much excessive chewing on the handle today.

So all in all a good day with a well rounded spread of foods actually eaten. It’s impressive to see how far Malina has gotten over the last two months and to know she’s gone from trying the foods to actually eating more of it.

So remember, even when things are really hectic, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Day 35 – Breakfast

It’s good to know that even when I’m tired, have a headache, and still haven’t had my morning cup of tea I can still be quick on the draw.

We did sleep training a couple weekends ago, and if you don’t know about that it’s when you help your baby learn to sleep or go to sleep by themselves. It’s good for them to develop a healthy relationship with sleep and learn to self soothe. It’s a horrible time when your sleep, as the parent, goes back to that of the newborn stage. We got through it and Malina now, usually, wakes up once or sometimes twice but she only needs a little comforting, usually, and will go back to bed.

Last night was not the usual night. She woke up and started playing in her crib. I woke up maybe ten minutes later and she was full on awake by then. I tried to calm her and help her sooth back to sleep but no such luck. She was awake for the next hour and then she would wake up if I tried to go back to bed. So I was up for two hours.

This wouldn’t have been a problem before but I’ve gotten used to more sleep recently and it hurt just a bit. It’s probably also why I had a headache this morning.

The good news is I prepared for breakfast last night by putting some of our leftover beef stew pieces in a container for Malina to eat for breakfast.

The stew was awesome by the way and it’s actually an adapted recipe using four of my BLW recipe books to come up with. There is no added salt and it still tastes so good. I’ll make a separate post with my recipe soon. Also, it reheated well and I froze a batch to find out if it freezes well later.

So this morning all I had to do was bake pear slices and toast bread. Easy.

It took me 30 minutes and I was ready to serve baby. What she was getting were stewed beef, carrots, red potato, and zucchini. Then she got peanut butter toast and baked Bartlet pear.

I’m playing around with the size of her foods right now because she’s had issues with them not being long enough and or big enough pieces. Plus she’s growing and I have to adapt. Always adapting.

Malina was excited for her food today and it made me happy to see her so eager.

I did not know that she had something besides eating in mind though.

As soon as I say the plate down she grabbed the carrots and as I got ready to take a picture of her eating she swung wide and tossed them at me.

I got the plate from her as she went in for a second grab and we decided to do breakfast differently. If I can’t trust her with a plate of food anymore then she’s getting one piece at a time.

So I decided we would start with peanut butter toast.

“I’m fed up with the crunchy foods, mama.”

Malina touched it to her mouth and felt it but she did not try to take a bite at all. I am starting to think she might not like the crunchy texture right now and will have to take that into account the next few days. Luckily she did not throw it, I think she understood that throwing was bad, but maybe that’s wishful thinking.

The next thing I offered her was the red potato. I know it’s a huge chunk but it was falling apart and I’m tying new sizes for her food. It’s too large for her mouth so it’s not a choking hazard, still it’s always up to your best judgement and what you’re comfortable with as the parent.

She really liked her potato. She managed to bite off several small pieces and was smiling as she ate it.

When she’d broken the potato down to pieces too small for her to pick up and eat we moved on to our next item. Baked pears.

This was her first time eating pears and she loved them. She ate bites off of all three of the slices I offered and then she had trouble eating anymore because the pieces were now too short for her.

Before she could get too irritated we moved on to the next food, a piece of the stewed beef.

“Oh, so this is what you wouldn’t let me eat last night. I’m glad you changed your mind.”

Yay! She likes the beef! Honestly I was worried since this is only her second time being offered beef and she didn’t really try to eat the steak the other day. Today she munched on the stewed beef piece and pulled off smaller chunks that she gummed and swallowed. I’m so proud of her when she eats well and even more so when she actually swallows the foods. The pieces of stewed beef are super tender too and easy for her to eat so I’ll be pulling a couple pieces aside to offer tomorrow too.

I’m so happy, despite the mess I’m going to be cleaning up.

So remember, even when baby thinks it’s cute to throw their food and honestly it kinda is and you just have to embrace the mess, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Note: carrots did not survive being tossed and she was not interested in the zucchini and tossed those when offered.

Summary – First Month

It’s been a long four weeks, but it’s also gone by really quickly. Malina’s food adventures are really just beginning to start and take off as we get through the allergens we can introduce more and more combo foods and different things.

Speaking of allergen foods. The plan was to have introduced four of the major eight food allergens by now and instead we’ve managed to introduce six of them! We started with eggs, our second week introduced dairy, our third we kinda double dipped into soy and wheat, and finally this last week we tackled fish. During this process though we’ve occasionally given Malina Peanut Bambas as a snack and she loves them. And that covers her peanut introduction, though I’ll probably do a week for it still unlike wheat.

During this time we’ve also seen her develop favorite/preferred as well as disliked foods.

For fruits: she likes raspberries, bananas, and mandarin oranges.

For vegetables: she likes broccoli, potatoes, and carrots.

For meats: she likes sausages, trout, and turkey.

Her favorite snack are the peanut bambas. She also really likes yogurt and whipped cream.

And she loves water.

During this first month we’ve introduced 55 foods to Malina. Of those she’s eaten some of them, sorry I just don’t have the time to go back over and count them right now. This means that she is about halfway through her food challenge, but that doesn’t mean she’ll stop getting new foods even when we get to 100 (which might be sooner than I thought).

This last month has been so exciting and fun. My favorite moments have been watching Malina achieve new skills and showing that she likes certain foods.

I look forwards to next month as we finish up the allergen introductions of peanuts, tree nuts, and shellfish. Once we’ve done all of these and seen no reaction we can relax a bit and enjoy this adventure. Plus next month is our last month of only doing breakfast! So in another month we will be starting lunches as well and that is both exciting and scary (meal planning is going to become imperative).

So that summarizes what we’ve done in the last month and what we have to look forwards to as we continue on.

As always, please remember that you’ve got this and you are doing great!

-Erica

100 Foods by 1

There is a food challenge for introducing foods to baby. It’s called one hundred foods by one.

This food challenge is just that. A challenge.

It’s not some necessary thing. It’s not a “if you can do it you’re an amazing mom” thing. It’s not about shaming moms who can’t do it for one reason or another either.

Premie babies don’t always start solids at the same actual age as their peers. A lot of them and their parents wait until their adjusted age is 6 months. Then there are the babies with allergies. It’s difficult to introduce 100 different foods when baby is allergic to entire groups of things. And that’s without getting into reasons such as money, resources, time, etc.

This is a challenge that you can not do or even start and not finish and you’re still a good mom. I promise. Honestly, it’s more a “fun” challenge than something to stress over. With a baby you don’t need any extra stress, but if you approach it as fun then it might help with things.

For me, this challenge is fun and gives me more ideas for foods to introduce to Malina. Foods both a part of our culture and not.

When I did all my research into baby led weaning I also looked into food introduction around the world. It’s interesting the types of foods that different cultures introduce as a first food to their babies. In France they focus on vegetables, in several different Asian cultures they start with rice porridge, in our own Hispanic culture we introduce beans, tortillas, and rice early on.

It was while doing my research that I even came across this challenge. And even then, depending on the source or even the person the challenge lists different items and rules on how to complete it.

For example, some people only count eggs once. It counts as one thing no matter how you cook it, but it does not count if it’s an ingredient in a larger thing such as a muffin.

Because of arbitrary ‘rules’ like this the challenge gets very complex, convoluted, and confusing.

I’ve seen entire arguments between different moms arguing for why they think a scrambled egg should count separate than a fried egg or omelet. I’ve seen the same mom told all types of mean things about her choice to count that way.

In the end, you can count however you want though. This is a challenge and not something anyone’s going to tally up and tell you if you passed or failed.

The actual goal of this challenge isn’t really 100 different foods either.

The actual goal is to introduce different textures, different tastes, and just a variety of things. It’s about expanding babies pallet early and opening a door to what everyone hopes is a good eater who likes a diverse array of foods and isn’t picky.

Though there are no guarantees that this will be the case. I’m sure that everyone, even as as adult, has had a phase where they want only one food and eat it without getting fed up (It’s pasta for me).

There are so many different vegetables, fruits, seasonings, meats, and just foods in the world. Different cultures cook on different ways and have different things to offer outside of what you might consider your norm.

Lotus root is amazing for example, but I’m so used to eating it in Thai and Japanese food that I wouldn’t expect to eat it outside of those cultures plates (though I have seen it elsewhere and it’s still good). So when I decided to introduce lotus root it will probably be in a dish from one of these cultures.

My husband is El Salvadorian. In his culture there is yucca (casava) root and it is served in a traditional dish. I’ve only ever had it in this dish and it will be how Malina is introduced to it as well.

Neither of the last two examples are on any of the hundred food less I’ve seen so far. Which is further proof that there is no right or wrong way to do the challenge.

So it’s up to you if you want to try it out and if it’s something that you feel would be a good addition to your baby’s food introduction journey.

Again, this is not something that is mandatory. It’s for fun. So I hope you and your little one have fun with it like we plan to.

So remember, whatever choices you make, you are still doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Day 20 – Breakfast

Almost through another week! Soon we will be starting week 4 and then I’ll have to make the compilation summary post for Malina’s first month. We’ve also successfully introduced four (Eggs, Dairy, Wheat, and Soy) of the eight major allergens and kept them in rotation for continued exposure. Honestly, I’m getting kinda exhausted but the excitement is keeping me going as well as how well Malina has been doing with this.

She’s the real MPV of this whole thing as I just document and dispense anecdotes and observations.

Despite all of that though, today’s breakfast is a bit bare bones and does not have any soy present.

It’s not the best excuse but I haven’t had the chance to do the meal prep I’ve wanted. For more than just Malina too. Does anyone else ever buy a bunch of stuff to make a specific recipe and then not use some of it for one reason or another?

No? It can’t just be me.

Well, I had big plans to make greek meatballs and homemade taziki last week. I bought everything. I checked the recipe multiple times and somehow missed the part where it takes 3 hours to make taziki.

Oops.

So we had the meatballs and I had several ingredients that went unused.

Skipping to today, I didn’t know what I was going to make Malina. I had zero plans as I opened the fridge. Oven preheating and water starting to boil so I had options when I was ready.

Then I saw them. The cucumbers and fresh dill. I have good experiences mixing these two, from back when I’d make cucumber sandwiches for my tea parties as a kid and later with my sister as adults. British Tea is an interesting thing that I wish we had in the states, but then again it makes it kinda unique and special to do it occasionally here and there, but I digress.

I’ve never cooked a cucumber before outside of stir frys and I didn’t feel like doing anything heavy with it. I looked to the dill again and made up my mind. Baked cucumber with dill it was.

So I cut the cucumber into small pinky wedges after peeling it and cutting out the seeds (mixed into about why you can’t give that to baby, so I’m erring in the side of the unknown) and tossed half of them with dill before tossing them in the oven for twenty minutes. In the mean time I tried to figure out the rest of our meal.

The thought of sandwiches did not leave me though so I turned to the deli drawer and pulled out roast beef (nitrate free) and considered my cheeses. We have four right now and all I could think of was cream cheese which we had none of. I settled for the cottage cheese, hoping Malina liked it more this second time.

So I prepared everything and soon we had breakfast ready.

Cucumber is a fruit/vegetable. Not based on its actual classification but on how our culture views it. Kinda like tomatoes. Personally, cucumbers have always tasted like a watery melon somewhere between a honeydew and watermelon to me, just less sweet and flavorful. So it actually being a fruit isn’t a big deal to me. Today though I served it two ways, with and without dill, and so I’m counting it as both.

Malina didn’t care though as she reached for her plate as I sat it down for her. The first thing she grabbed was the roast beef.

This was Malina’s first time with beef but not her first time with meat. Don’t know why it surprised me but she’s definitely a little carnivore as she loved this. She picked up slice after slice chewing and sucking on them. It makes me excited to give her more meat in the future, I love meat.

By the end of breakfast she’d demolished the strips and when I looked at what was left and accounted for what I’d seen fall to Pluto she definitely ate at least one of not two strips.

The next thing she went for though was the cottage cheese. I had planned to offer her a spoon but she took matters into her own hands, literally.

Again I was surprised as she ate a couple handfuls of the cottage cheese. Done was the grimace at its sourness and the spitting of dislike. Malina actually ate some and liked it.

So when she went for the cucumbers inevitability I figured she’d probably not care for them with having done well with everything else.

“This water stick is yummy. You say it’s called a ‘cucumber’. What kind of name is that?”

But I was wrong. She obviously preferred the ones with dill. Chewing and removing the seasoning as she took bites and gummed it.

For the record, the baked cucumber was crisp on the outside and watery on the inside. The dill ones were savory and the plain ones were sweet. So who knew? I’ll have to play around with this in the future but for now I am both impressed and happy it turned out. Also, I want to say how much of a champion Malina has been the last couple days with her eating. This whole thing could have been harder or easier based off of her and I’m happy she’s been going easy on me so far.

So remember, even when winging it, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Day 19 – Breakfast

My posts are all off right now as I play catch-up. Yikes do things get in the way when you have a baby. Malina had trouble last week because of teething and now she’s been having trouble sleeping. Which means I am having trouble sleeping. Symbiotic relationships aren’t always great for everyone.

But anyways, I have uploaded the last couple of days posts and am finally back on track. So today, Wednesday, we actually got some rest. I’m not sure if this is a fluke or if something changed or if Malina is back to her older schedule but I’m taking it right now.

So having slept decent I woke up before Malina for the first time in forever and went to preheat the oven for our breakfast today.

Vegetable nests, meatless breakfast patties, and frozen raspberries.

So everything today is from Trader Joe’s. I like them, they have low sodium and sugar, and it makes my life easier especially when sleep has not been guaranteed and I haven’t had energy to really cook or do meal prep.

What’s important is baby is eating anyways.

So I served this up and Malina was quick to grab the silicone feeder of raspberries. She probably thought it was bananas as she started to eat.

I wish I’d gotten a picture of her surprise but she was fast and right after discovering it was good she popped it right back in her mouth.

I think she’s gotten used to having breakfast and eating because she doesn’t jump from item to item as much anymore and instead focuses on one thing at a time. Today the main focus was her new favorite, frozen raspberries. The picture doesn’t do her justice for how red her mouth and face got from her eating the berries, but she ate almost all of them and it wasn’t until an unfortunate shake of the feeder that she lost the entire thing to the floor.

She was upset a moment but I got her to focus on all the food she hadn’t touched yet. And her next choice was the meatless breakfast patty. The first one was tossed to the floor, tribute for Pluto, though he was put away because of the onions in today’s food. The next patty she started to eat. Watching me for cues. I think it’s adorable that she sometimes won’t eat the food until she sees me take a bite of the same thing.

“If you’re eating it, it can’t be that bad.”

She ate a couple bites but she wasn’t a big fan of the patties today. With nothing else to try, she finally went for the vegetable nests.

Malina seemed to like the texture of the nests. She touched them and pulled them apart as she tried to eat it. She also seemed to like the actual vegetables, though I think she only got zucchini and onion in her bites that she took. She was happy as she ate it and I was happy that she liked it.

Today was a good day for her breakfast. She ate some of everything and seemed to really like the raspberries and vegetable nests. I’m going to have to go back over what she’s been offered vs what she’s tried and make sure we repeat what we need to and mark off what she’s eaten. I’ll probably make a summary post when we get to the end of our first month and sometime before then make a post on our goal of 100 foods before one as well as explain what that is. But for now, mama needs to relax.

So remember, even when sleep deprived, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Note: Soy was in everything besides the fruit today and we are still reaction free.

Day 14 – Breakfast

We have a tooth! Malina has been teething for almost a week and yesterday we got to see the tooth make its appearance as it cut through the gums. Now that the supposed hard hurting part is over I’m hoping Malina gets to relax and not be in so much pain. In helping with that I made her some easy to mash foods for her to chew on for breakfast today.

We have cauliflower pancakes, meatless breakfast patties, frozen blueberries, and yogurt.

It’s fun eating what she’s eating. Or is it her eating what I’m eating? Eh, same difference.

Malina was not eager again but with some coaxing she grabbed one of the meatless patties first.

And she loved it! She ate about a quarter of a full patty and it broke up easy for her as she ate it. I was happy to have a success and to see some of her appetite coming back.

Note on items being served: I shop at a bunch of different places for our family but one of my favorites is Trader Joe’s. The reason why is the portioning of their products. I can buy something that is intended to feed two people easy without worrying about leftover or reheating things. The same is true for individual portions. Plus, I’ve ran into way more things I like that they sell than things I dislike, so I always feel confident buying something new. So both the meatless patties and cauliflower pancakes come from there. I checked the sodium and sugar levels before I bought them too and was happy I could share them with Malina.

Malina enjoyed her meatless patty so much that she got excited and tossed the other one while hitting her tray. Pluto was the victor of that half, it was gone by the time I bent to look.

Continuing on, she grabbed for the cauliflower pancake and before I could decipher her reaction she’d tossed it with a yell and grabbed the second one to do the same. I can’t say I blame her, they weren’t all that great.

Mid toss of patty two, because why fight her about her dislikes.

I guess we’re at the tossing phase now. At least I have a dog for cleaning the mess. A dog that is going to get fat and then need to go on a diet, I remind myself. Or maybe Malina will start crawling and that will give him his exercise. Lol.

So the next thing I tried to get her to eat was the frozen blueberries. She tried it too, but apparently she dislikes blueberries more than she likes the cold.

I wish I could say that she ate the yogurt again, but she was irritated and threw the first and second spoon before I gave up on that endeavor.

So I cleaned Malina up and called breakfast as being over. Meatless patties were a win, everything else not so much. It will probably be a while now before I try blueberries again since she obviously didn’t like them.

So whether baby is picky, has preferences, or hates everything just remember that you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Day 12 – Breakfast

Malina is full swing teething and her sleep schedule is changing again. Both are signs that she’s developing and growing, but it is bittersweet as her mama. I’ve enjoyed her as a small newborn baby, then as a rolling infant, and now as a learning to crawl infant who will probably hit toddling before being a toddler. Her food journey is one of those things that show how she is progressing as well. How much food she eats, how she interacts with it, and what she can and can’t do. Everyday she gets closer to being able to pick up the food easier despite its shape or texture. She still has a lot of issues of course, this is only her second week, but I can see her improvements.

One of the things I wanted to do from the begging of our BLW journey was to introduce foods in different ways. Different textures, tastes, and ways of serving. I was able to do that very well with eggs during our egg allergen introduction but with dairy the concept is a little more complex. I don’t think Malina knows that one cheese is different from another or that yogurt and cheese (at least the ones were doing for now) come from cow milk. I’m sure that if I gave her sour cream or whipped cream the concept would still be lost on her. That would be a great thing for teaching a toddler, and is something I’ll probably revisit because that sounds fun.

So my point is that repetition can be important but there are things that don’t benefit from it. So since our dairy allergen introduction is not going to benefit I might as well find other things to repeat.

So today we did two things for a second time with slight alterations: rosemary carrots, this time steamed, and cinnamon applesauce.

The other part of our breakfast was cheddar cheese slices and turkey meat slices (no nitrates, because they told me to avoid them while pregnant and it’s easy to avoid for Malina for now). This is a very European breakfast I realize, it makes me especially remember mornings in Germany and Italy where there were a lot of cheese and meat like this offered in the morning. But I digress. This is Malina’s food adventure, not my reminiscing on travel adventures time.

So once I had the carrots cooked up I served our breakfast and sat Malina down. Today though, because of the teething no doubt, she was not as eager to eat.

Breakfast is just whatever you eat first thing in the morning.

Malina stared at her plate and me for almost five minutes before she finally decided to grab something. It took a lot of prompting, encouragement, and miming with my own food for my part. Also, I’ve noticed she usually goes for what is on the front left side as she grabbed the turkey.

She held it in her hands, pulling it apart before putting a piece to her mouth.

She was neither impressed or disgusted with the turkey. She took a little nibble and then pulled it apart more and threw it to the dog.

Pluto (the dog mentioned) is going to get fat at this rate. I can already see that I’m going to have to put him on a diet in the near future as Malina is getting better at tossing the food to the floor. Thankfully she hasn’t noticed Pluto eating it, otherwise she might start to do it on purpose.

The next thing she got around to was the cheddar cheese.

“This doesn’t taste like yesterday’s cheese.”

It probably proves her preference for the mozzarella since she nibbled on the cheddar before spitting it out. I was impressed by her actually biting off a piece to do so with though.

The next thing was the steamed rosemary carrots. Since she likes the baked rosemary carrots I figured this would be an easy one for her to like.

I was wrong. Texture means a lot to Malina. That’s why she only liked one kind of egg. So apparently, baked carrots are superior to steamed. I don’t mind her choice, I agree with it actually. There are only a few vegetables I like steamed, but it’s important to try so here we are.

Finally, I gave her a spoon with the applesauce. She did not eat the applesauce right away though and instead turned the spoon around to chew on it.

Oh, teething.

She did inevitably let me help her turn the spoon and then some of the applesauce made it to her mouth. She seemed pleased with it but she was not as gung-ho as she was with the yogurt. But hey, applesauce was a win.

Since Malina wasn’t very interested in her food and she had interacted everything, I let her have another five minutes before starting to clean her up and calling breakfast as being over.

So far the only dairy Malina likes is yogurt and mozzarella cheese. One is tart and the other very mild. So I think the next things we will try will be like those flavors. I have plenty of ideas. I also think that she would like plain applesauce more than cinnamon, so that is something I’ll play with too in the future. I can only think of two more methods for the carrots so I’ll keep those in mind as well. I

learned a lot from today, even if Malina didn’t eat much of anything. So this was a good way to remind myself that BLW is a journey and everyday doesn’t have to be measured by how much baby eats but what the experience has shown.

So remember, even if it’s hard to feel successful, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica