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 53 – Breakfast

You know what makes breakfast easier?

Leftovers.

With the right leftovers you can make a nice breakfast and its super quick too.

So today we did a leftover breakfast. We had some of the extra oatmeal from yesterday, refried beans with onion from dinner last night, and animal crackers.

The first thing Malina tried out was the reheated oatmeal.

The oatmeal reheated really well and even tasted the same as the day before, the only difference was that it was now a lot more thicker. That is something that is easy enough to fix though by adding more liquid to it.

Malina took a couple bites and then she was super quick in picking up her entire plate and tossing it over the side.

Nice.

Well, that was a large mess that I hadn’t thought I’d be cleaning. So we ended breakfast and I tried to take heart in the fact that the oatmeal reheated well.

So remember, even when baby tosses all the food and makes a huge mess, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Day 52 – Breakfast

Today we tried to go for a more simple with our approach to breakfast.

So first off I wanted to try making Malina oatmeal from scratch using one of the recipes from a BLW app I have.

This ended up being a very poor idea to try on the fly because the recipe was in metric, it did not have clear enough instructions as I am still uncertain what the person meant by oats but it was obviously not whole oats, and everything needed to be microwaved and we can’t run the toaster and microwave at the same time without tripping the power because the wiring is weird.

And I tried to make toast to go with this of course.

Yeah, problems abounded.

In the end, I made it in the microwave, it was too thin and runny so I tried to save it in the blender and cool it with frozen berries and bananas.

It ended up turning out just fine but it was no longer the recipe I used and was more of my own recipe at this point.

Malina was not bothered by any of that of course. She was happy to see the bowl of purple oatmeal in front of her and dug in with her provided spoon.

Surprisingly, she managed two bites by herself of the oatmeal and seemed to like it well enough. But after that she used the spoon to make more of a mess and the result was her wearing more of the oatmeal rather than eating it.

“Look, I found another use for the oatmeal mama. We can wear it!”

She’s adorable.

I was again just happy to get breakfast made and that she tried it so today gets a checkmark as a win.

So remember, even when baby rather make their food into a face mask, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Day 51 – Lunch

So we aren’t truly starting lunches just yet, but since we made a Malina friendly lunch and she was interested in the food, I offered her some of our lunch.

BLW is supposed to be “baby eats what you eat” without major modifications or making two meals, but my plan when we start doing lunches outright is to focus on balanced meals like our breakfasts and to leave out extra salt and added sugars. Since those are not things I actually paid attention to in me and my husbands food before that I will be paying attention to in the near future.

For us BLW is more like we eat what baby eats and baby eats what is considered ‘adult’ foods.

So I’ll be trying to fit in the rest of my personal meals before everything becomes shared. Goodbye ramen, chips, and donuts. Oh well, I’d cut them out when I was pregnant before so it won’t be too bad.

Today’s lunch was spicy tuna and rice balls.

What I like about making rice balls is that the sushi rice is sticky and clumps easily. We also use rice vinigar which gives the rice a nice added depth of flavor.

Eric doesn’t like spicy foods, so the spicy tuna is actually very mild.

So we set it on Malina’s tray and she was very tentative in dealing with the rice. Reaching out her hand, feeling the slight heat, and pulling away before repeating the process.

“Oooo, this looks nice. It feels warm though.”

In the end, she saw us eating without any problems and dove right in to that rice. She really seemed to like it too. Stuffing bites in her mouth and smiling at us.

I was really happy to be starting to share more meals with her. She’s gotten more and more interested in our food throughout the day and I felt bad not offering her it.

She mainly ate the rice though. She did play with the tuna but I think she knew it was tuna still and didn’t want anything to do with it.

So remember, even if what you’re doing isn’t exactly BLW, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Day 51 – Breakfast

Today I was unprepared.

Malina wasn’t feeling well this morning and spit up after having her milk so I had to stop preparing breakfast and clean her up. She ended up doing this two more times and it meant a lot less time in the kitchen.

So in the end she got a breakfast that was more thrown together than planned and cooked.

So she ended up getting chopped cherry tomatoes, plain yogurt, almond biscotti, and fish cakes.

There are some mornings where I don’t expect Malina to eat very much or very well. This was one of them for a number of reasons but we still carried on.

So the first thing she went for was the biscotti.

She nommed on the biscotti for a while and even got it to be mushy enough at one end to scrape off bits.

The next thing she grabbed was one of the fish cakes.

I bought these fish cakes for Oden that I planned to make, but since they were available and ready to go I took one out for Malina.

I was surprised that she went for it because it does have a stronger fishy smell, but she grabbed it and ate a few bites. So, go Malina!

“Thank you for the animal crackers, papa.”

Eric joined us for breakfast soon after the fish cakes and pulled out some animal crackers to eat with his coffee. But because Malina was right there she demanded tribute and recieved her share of animal crackers.

So begins the life long tradition of “What is mine is mine and what is yours is mine” mentality that children have towards their parents food.

She ate her crackers though and then moved on to the yogurt.

Malina has improved in using her hands to eat things like yogurt. This is great as far as skills go but it often means now that she rather use her hands and fingers than the spoon I offer her.

Things began to wind down from here and she didn’t touch the cherry tomatoes today, but I was happy with what she did manage to eat.

So remember, even when baby rather be more hands on, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Day 50 – Breakfast

Today Eric got up early, before me and baby, and started to make breakfast. It was sweet and I was so happy to not have to worry about anything.

He even followed the BLW rules and didn’t add salt to anything.

So we had scrambled eggs, pork sausage, potato hash browns, and cherry tomatoes.

So we sat down to an awesome breakfast and let Malina go at it. And the first thing she grabbed was the scrambled eggs.

“There is something special about these eggs.”

She actually ate the scrambled eggs. She hasn’t liked them when I’ve offered them but when her papa makes them she eats them.

I see how it is.

She liked it though so that’s a win and I’m not too miffed about it because Eric is a good cook and if she prefers his scrambled eggs I can get out of more breakfasts in the future 😛

The next thing that Malina tried was her hash browns.

She ate the hash browns, but she got distracted as she did so. I can’t blame her though, it was a nice morning and really windy. The trees were swaying everywhere and she hadn’t seen that before.

She did manage to pick up her plate after this though and we had to switch her food to her tray for the duration of breakfast.

Once we made the switch she reached for her tomatoes.

Surprising no one, Malina devoured the tomatoes and soon after tossed all of the sausages to Pluto and ended her breakfast.

We’re still working on communicating when she’s done eating to avoid the food tossing.

So remember, even when you and baby are having a hard time understanding each other, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Day 49 – Breakfast

Today marks the end of seven weeks into this food adventure. Malina is just a couple weeks away from being eight months old and starting to do two meal a day of solids.

Even though the technical point of two months will be the end of week eight, I plan to count by the actual day of the month to the following day of the next month as far as tracking from here on out.

With our major allergens all introduces I am also going to stop thinking about what week it is since now we have free reign. I’ll still be keeping an eye out for reactions of course, but being able to relax a little and not worry about making things around one ingredient will be a big relief as I serve Malina more food.

Doing eight allergens in seven weeks was interesting and exceeded the plan of eight weeks. But honestly that was a mistake on my part more than anything when I introduced wheat without giving it its own week.

So as our last day of tree nut introduction I wanted to do a mini celebration for Malina and made her something special.

Almond biscotti!

I love biscotti, they go great with tea, coffee, or just by themselves. They are a hard biscuit cookie that are a perfect size for Malina to pick up and hard enough that she’s not going to break off a piece easy or eat too much of it.

That being said, I did soften one slightly with hot water so she could get some of the exterior off easily and actually try it.

The rest of her breakfast was baked apple slices from yesterday, goat cheese, and mashed peas.

So as you can see in our first picture, Malina was eager to start breakfast. And the thing she was going for was the biscotti.

And apparently Malina preferred the hard biscotti to the one I softened for her. She gnawed on it until it got soft on the outsides and she ate what came apart. She really seemed to like it though and I am glad.

When she was done with the biscotti she moved onto the goat cheese.

Malina has gotten better at eating things like the goat cheese with her hands. She gets it on her fingers and brings it to her mouth well enough. She’s even figured out how to open her hand and put the food in her mouth. I’m so very proud of her and her progress.

Also, she liked the cheese.

After a little bit of time she decided to mix things up, literally mixing bites of cheese with the apple.

I did the same and it’s a great combination. The savory cheese brings out the apple sweetness while playing off its tang. It was so good.

Finally, when she seemed done with the apples and cheese I switched out her plate for the bowl of smashed peas.

She was not impressed with the peas. She ate the first bite and then played around with the mush. They were good peas, just not up to Malina’s high standards apparently.

So remember, even when baby is being more of a fine connoisseur, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Day 48 – Breakfast

Some days I feel like I have to do too many things and then other days I feel accomplished because I actually did so many things. Then I’ll feel accomplished just for getting through the day. Being a mom is hard, even when it’s not a hard day.

But today was a day that I planned to take on and get stuff done. I had laundry to fold (like a lot of if), laundry to clean, dishes go wash, and I was making dinner today too. Then Malina woke us up an hour early in preparation for daylight savings (which is still somehow a thing) and I had to be extra on top of things.

So first I had to start with our breakfast.

So today I decided to go easy on myself and we did toast with the mixed nut butter, steamed green beans, and baked pink lady apples.

Surprisingly, the first thing Malina went for was the toast.

“I’ll try it as many times as you make me I suppose.”

Malina has not had the best track record with toast. There are times when I don’t cook it just right and she hates it and then there are other factors that I don’t even know that make her not want to eat it.

So I was super surprised when she went for it first and even more so when she started to gnaw on it and actually eat it. She tore off a piece and chewed it up as she continued to mess with the stick of toast.

When she was ready to move on she went for the green beans.

“To green bean or to not green bean, that is the question.”

Malina still likes her green beans but she is at a stage where she stuffs the whole thing in her mouth and can’t quite figure out the next step since she only had the two bottom teeth and no way to break it up further once it’s in her mouth.

Still, she gnaws on it awhile before spitting it out and shoving the next thing in her mouth, apples.

There are so many types of apples. I know some of the ones I like and there are still so many more I haven’t tried. There was once a time that I categorized them by color but not anymore.

I don’t like the pink lady apples raw. They are too tart and grainy for me. So I had no problem tossing the apple in the oven and seeing how it came out.

Baking these things brings out the sweetness and I found myself appreciating the flavor of the baked apple.

Malina felt much the same. She definitely preferred this apple to the cosmic crisp she’d tried before and now I wonder if we shouldn’t try a few other apples to see how she does.

Malina’s next step was to then try and shove green beans and more apple in her mouth at the same time and we soon had a gagging episode that made me almost consider if I should treat it as choking, but she worked it out and soon showed signs she was finished.

So remember, even when baby shoves all the food in their mouth and gags a little, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica