October's new words

Naomi is now well into asking what things are. We hear "dat" - 'what' - a lot, whilst things are proffered to be named. And "there" has developed into "here" as well, so we no longer have to be watching when we ask her to find something.

But the most recent development is "wee" lol. She's been following me to the toilet for months but today I put her down so that I could go to the bathroom and so said "Mummy needs a wee". Cue her going into the bathroom ahead of me going "wee, wee, wee".

Shame it doesn't extend to her sitting on the potty lol. We aren't trying in any way to do potty training yet but she always wees about 30 seconds after coming out of the bath. So it would be good if we could get her to sit on then. Both to save the carpet (!) and to show her what the potty is for. But all attempts so far have failed! She will sit on it for ages fully clothed if SHE chooses to.

Just in case anyone is still reading lol, here is a new picture.

this week's new things

Naomi is so much more ready to try new things than either she was before or her brother. This week she has taken a liking to both Sainsbury's tomato pasta salad, which we've had for a couple of picnics, and their coleslaw. Both she has consumed with gusto whenever they have been on offer and sometimes not if she can steal more than she is allowed from someone else's plate!

She is definitely now having conversations with people. It is still mostly babble but she has the inflection of a question on many occasions and waits for your reply before saying something else. Also she will sit with a book and babble to herself as she turns the pages, pointing to letters and words as she has seen us do. It is SO cute.

And she will continuously repeat a new word as if she is attempting to work out the correct pronunciation. Sometimes she is very nearly there - this week with trousers - and sometimes she is very far off - her attempt at tortoise was hilarious. But you can see the thought processes coming out in her speech.

I LOVE this stage!

more words

Stars, hat, head, duck (how COULD I forget that one lol), quack. She also has a great range of animal noises and many many signs.

new food and new words

Luke and I were out at the Science Museum so DH did all the meals. We came home to meatballs and pasta. I have NEVER seen Naomi eat a meal SO fast. Especially one made out of mince. And, finally!, pasta spirals were going in by the handful. Lol! One very happy happy mum. We use a Nigella recipe where you don't have the fry the meatballs, its lovely.

And Naomi said 'bib' to her dad today. As clear as a bell apparently which is interesting as she often drops the first syllable of a word. This morning's 'toast' was much clearer than usual too. Although 'cheese' still often sounds like 'trees'.

Think I will start recording her other words on here for posterity too. She was 15 months this week and can say cup, car, cheese, trees, toast, bib, cat, bus, teeth, daddy, milk, book, Jess (toy cat's name), snake.

what next.....

I'm not really sure where to take this blog now. Naomi eats virtually everything we do and is even being tempted by the odd bit of spaghetti bolognaise and chilli. She adores DH's lamb burgers which he makes with mince to a meatball recipe so it really is only a matter of time. Only occasionally do we have to resort to an omelette. I meant to make some more mini pies and quiches but forgot for a bit and there isn't really a need anymore. Wowee, my baby really is a little girl.

Here she is in her new grown up chair as well lol. We've had it a while because we bought 2 when we bought Luke his. But she's so eager to do a Houdini out of her booster seat towards the table, that we thought it was time to try it.

weekend away

Our friends were married for 15 years this week and its been tough the last few for one reason or another so they decided to have a rededication ceremony. So we've been socialising!

They cooked dinner for us on Friday night but with various family from all over the country to wait for the timings were all out. So Naomi ate two and a half, yes TWO AND A HALF, of her pies followed by some fruit pot. Hungry girl! Cleaned us out now so I must make some more pronto as they are such a standby.

Friday night was vile as she is teething and so was up most of the night on and off. I think her biggest stretch of sleep was a shade under 4hrs. And so she was in bed with us and not in the cot in the hotel room. Double, triple yuck yuck yuck. Fortunately Luke didn't stir, phew.

The rest of the weekend was pretty normal - buffet lunches and fish fingers. Dipping her fingers in champagne & beer lol. And today DH made a lovely yummy chicken pie with carrot, courgette and broccoli. Not much remained at the end so hopefully she'll go through like she did last night and catch up on herself.

peas peas and more peas

I think Naomi is going to be good for my diet! Last night DH was doing quiche for us and he forgot to put her mini one in the oven too. So we just decided to give her some of the bacon & leek one we were having. Must get round to making my own but Mr Tesco isn't bad ha ha. So a quiche that usually does 2 adults and 1 child now had to do 4 people. Won't help if I then eat loads of muffins though lol.

At breakfast times I've gone back to giving her some milk in a bottle. She just drinks more that way than milk or water out of a cup and I was a bit worried that she wasn't taking in enough. Didn't seem to affect the amount of Weetabix she wanted so all well and good. And then she goes until her lunch at 12 generally although I do carry a small snack and her water cup with me when we go out.

So this evening Luke asked for fish & chips so DH did salmon fillets and home made wedges. I had chicken as I detest fish. We had salad and she had veg but we all had peas and she was just shoving them in. She does this really funny action that I can't quite describe but is kind of picking them up in a pincer grip but then putting three fingers in with the pea in a very short staccato action. And she was doing a pea a second just like that. It is hilarious to watch and good too since the peas are very good for her!

She's still a titch though. 50th centile for height and weight although when I look back Luke wasn't much above the 50th centile for height approaching the end of his first year and I didn't start plotting it regularly until he was about 1.75 yo and then he was firmly 75th centile for a good year after that before working his way up to the 91st where he is now. So there is plenty of time really. I'd just like her to have some of the height genes in the family. DH & I both have tiny sisters although my brother is exceedingly tall. I think its because now she is standing up and virtually walking people keep saying to me 'isn't she diddy to be on her feet' so I'm getting paranoid lol.

non food first

Just cannot resist showing you these. Usually I am the world's worst nightmare for marketeers. I rarely buy anything that is 'new' or 'updated' or 'absolutely must have' and I am really terrible when it comes to things for children.

However, Naomi is still refusing to walk independently even though she cruises barely holding on. But she wants to get down from the pushchair whenever she can, especially when Luke is around and particularly when we drop him off at school in the mornings and have to wait for them to open the nursery door.

So I finally succumbed to a pair of cruising shoes for her and, if I say so myself, they are gorgeous. They had a purple pair that weren't the right shape for her foot, BIG shame, and then these which come in white, pink, or brown. I decided white would get too grubby even though they are washable and I just detest pink(!) so brown it had to be. She is a 3G which I think is about normal. Luke had proper shoes at this age and he was a 3F. His feet grow ever so slowly - only bit of him that DOES - and I can usually buy just one pair a season. Hope Naomi is the same coz they are SO expensive.

lots of firsts

Naomi is getting slightly more adventurous with her food wahoo! Especially, dare I say it, fruit. Just before we went away she had started to accept blueberries and she will now, when the mood takes her, eat cherries and grapes. It started because Luke and I had them in our breakfast and she has started to demand whatever we have. So I passed her one expecting absolutely nothing and she ate it! And more!

Some days she will still take or leave everything though and I can't even rely on her eating strawberries every time now when she used to love them. Ah well, the joys of being 13 months.

This demanding what we are eating can be a bit difficult though. Yesterday we both had ham sandwiches but mine was apparently still different! I think she wants her sandwich just cut into quarters rather than tiny squares so we are compromising with long strips at the moment, otherwise she just pulls the whole thing apart.

While on holiday we relaxed a bit and so here are some piccies of Naomi 'enjoying' ice-cream and crisps for the first - and last for quite some time - time lol.

normal service is resumed!

I haven't posted for absolutely aeons I know but Naomi has been teething (molars out of order, what joy!) and we've been away on holiday.

Promise to try and do better although now she is virtually walking and just wants to climb everything I'm rushed off my feet more than ever. This morning I found that she had climbed onto Luke's bed (a standard single) to look at something more closely.

WOW - more new stuff

Dh let me know in advance, rarely happens!, that he was going to be late home from work so I decided we would eat later and the kids could have fish fingers. I fried them as it was quicker than the oven although I wouldn't do that all the time as they are more greasy. But 2 still got devoured in very short time. With potatoes & carrot and, WOW, sweetcorn! I had cooked it and peas for Luke so thought I would try Naomi with them. The pea's reception was lukewarm but the sweetcorn was going down as if it were blueberries like last week. I guess because it lives up to its name!

And she allowed a few pieces of the pineapple that Luke was having for pudding also. It was in syrup because that's all I could get at the time but at least she ate it!

I was beginning to wonder as she didn't eat very much breakfast, having not had all that much dinner last night, but she wolfed Laughing Cow cheese & cucumber sandwiches for lunch so I guess she knows what she is doing and we just have to go along with it!

still no to mince

My choice today so I went through the freezer and found loads of 'bits' of spag bol. Put them all in the same saucepan for tea. After all we need to defrost both the freezers so its good to start running them down.

Unfortunately Naomi decided it was STILL the food of the devil and refused to eat it after one mouthful that identified what it was. That said she didn't eat much at all. I gave her gnocchi in cheese sauce which should have been devoured in seconds but wasn't. She didn't want pudding either. She slept through the night though. Maybe she was just tired out. She woke up early and dozed on and off for a few hours and then when I went to wake her during her nap so we could go out to a special music group she was already awake.

But she and Luke loved the music time. Now she is crawling it is SO much fun. She goes off and gets a percussion instrument and can stand up to play or shake something. She is SO cute!

dh back at work

It is so lovely having DH at home and he loves it SO much. I wish we could win the lottery so he didn't have to work at all. So we are back to boring breakfasts and lunches as I get very samey with what goes on!

For dinner Luke chose quiche. Not at all exciting but very easy.

chinese chicken

We had BIL staying over last night so didn't go to church this morning. Weather was lovely so had a lazy day in the garden.

DH cooked chinese chicken for dinner which both children adore. So no problems there then :-)

Naomi's first pasta

We have my husband's brother staying the night as he is over from Spain on holiday. As DH has been away all week we were going to go out anyway and don't change our plans. So teatime finds us in Pizza Express, Luke's absolute favourite. As usual we decide to feed Naomi a combination from our plates so DH has his favourite pizza and I decide to have pasta. I usually have cannelloni but Naomi's pasta issues have all been to do with chewing and even though she has cut her top 2 front teeth and they have come through incredibly quickly, I settle on the tortellini. It promises to come in a ham, mushroom & cream sauce which I know she will love as she's had similar a number of times in our favourite pub.

The tortellini are large bite size in Naomi's terms and I put a couple on her plate after they have cooled. In they go and they do not reappear! This is wonderful news. I have longed for Naomi to eat pasta because its such a staple in our diet and its yummy. Italy is one of my favourite places and I really want to take the children there.

So she has bits of DH's pizza, bits of Luke's and more and more pasta. Yahoo! Obviously it is baked pasta and so I might need to think of doing some of our dishes along these lines for a little while but it bodes SO well.

Maybe her first birthday did bring a sea change after all, although her sleeping through has gone to pot a bit. Can't decide if its teeth, the weather or something else we cannot yet diagnose. C'est la vie. IT WILL PASS!

more rice and a fruit success!

Yesterday Luke asked for chicken pesto but it was too late to cook it as it takes 90 mins to prep and cook. So I said I would do it today. Both children absolutely love it and its so easy.

Basically you put enough chicken for 4 people in a dish (roasting tin or something like a lasagne dish) and add a chopped onion, chopped mushrooms, a bit of pepper or any other veg you fancy. Then 6oz of rice, 2oz of raisins, 1pt of chicken stock and a 190g jar of pesto. Cook at 180 degrees for an hour or until all the liquid is absorbed. Taste the rice. If its still a bit chewy - brown rice might be - cover with foil so the top doesn't burn. Make sure you put the chicken in the dish first because any rice trapped underneath won't cook. Thigh & drumstick meat comes out really really soft and unctious but breast is fine too. Yum yum.

For pudding all this week we've been having strawberries as we all enjoy them. This morning, while shopping, I grabbed some blueberries too and I decided to give Naomi one. Well, it went in and didn't come out. So I put another one on her tray and she ate that. In total she must have had about TEN. Yes TEN blueberries! Regular readers will know this is something unheard of so I am absolutely delighted.

tasty tasty but not food

As the week goes on I am running out of ideas a bit. The kids haven't had sausages for a while so I cook up some of these with some savoury rice. Naomi has gone rice bonkers lately and so I make sure she eats some sausage and veg first. As with gnocchi, once she has seen the rice it all has to be eaten before she will then go back to anything else.

Earlier in the afternoon though Naomi decided to help herself to an interesting snack from her changing bag! Fortunately they are green flushable ones and not tested on animals.

Little minx!

baking day

Tomorrow is Cake Sale Day at ds's school. They are raising money to build another rain shelter in the playground and all sorts of events have already gone on, this being the latest. DH is usually the baker in this house & loves having Luke to help. But there is no time for that this week and so I have to get my pinny on. We make raisin biscuits as its a really easy recipe and I can't make anything for which I don't have the ingredients because Naomi is sleeping and so I can't leave the house. So it's actually a recipe for chocolate chip cookies but I know that DH has doctored it before. We still taste 'just to check'.

So at the same time we make another bacon & egg loaf. It is a big favourite and I only have a couple of slices left in the freezer anyway. Naomi would eat a whole loaf if I let her!

simple food

DH is having a 5hr round trip (door to door by train) every day this week to a different site office so although he's trying to help out as much as ever, I have to feed the children because he's getting home so late.

So today I cook a quiche for ds and we eat it later. He's just got into eating salad which is great and EASY! So Naomi has her own pie & quiche from the freezer stock with carrot & broccoli and new potatoes.

I must start making my own quiche and then we can all eat the same one.

mixed bits and pieces

Today should be Luke's first day back at school after half term but its an Inset Day. His old preschool are going to Legoland so I decide to go too, along with, or so it feels, the entire county of Berkshire. It is HEAVING.

Because I only decided this morning, not wanting to take the kids if it's going to be too hot, I haven't got any food plans and so eat in the restaurant. This is woefully overpriced and so I try and avoid it wherever possible usually. I pay far too much money for a very sad ploughmans but at least it has bread and cheese that I can give to Naomi. I also buy some breaded chicken for her, intending to take off most of the coating, but it seems stuck somehow and so I have no choice but to give it to her. But its made from real chicken, you can see by the texture and the way it tears and however they have been cooked, they are nice and dry, not at all greasy. And she ate so well over the weekend its not so bad once in a while.

I make her a veggie omelette for tea which disappears in seconds, even though I'm not as good at making them as DH.

its sunday so it must be roast time

We often have roast on a Sunday but its usually chicken so we decided to get some pork instead. Failed and failed to order it from the butcher so got it from Sainsburys, which was fine as it was a whole piece still vacuum wrapped from the supplier. But it meant no fat to make crackling :-(

We've tried Naomi on pork in the past and she's found it a little bit chewy but we checked the timings in the cook book and it was very very yummy. Soaked in a little bit of gravy she managed absolutely fine, really really enjoying it. DH also bought a parsnip and some sweet potato for variety and they were also wolfed.

And it was nice enough weather to eat it outside. What more could one want?

weekend downtime

Dh is going to be very very busy work wise the next two weeks so we decided to try and potter today whilst getting stuff done. I had a lie in, lovely!, while DH & the kids breakfasted on the patio. Porridge & banana were, as usual, made short work of. Then we went and bought DH some new running shoes in a nearby village before heading back into town.

This took us up to lunchtime so we went to Costa Coffee and Naomi munched her way through half a pack of egg mayo sandwich and half a pack of tuna mayo. They had no highchairs so she remained in her pushchair, eating SO daintily. Hardly any of it went anywhere except her mouth, even though she kept kicking against the retainer bar so that she slumped down. Looked more like a teenager reclining on a sofa ha ha.

For dinner DH made chicken goujons. Strangely enough Naomi only ate one, albeit a decent sized one, and refused the others. Maybe she didn't like the coating, I'm not sure. They were yummy though! Strawberries for pudding are never refused, unlike the raspberry we again tried her with. Straight in and straight OUT again! I am determined to keep going though. She refused strawbs the first few times we gave them to her and now she inhales them whole. We'll put some in her breakfast tomorrow so that she can have another taste mixed in with something she does like.

busy busy busy - its birthday time

This last week has been really busy! My baby turned 1. Eek! She is a baby no longer but a proper little girl. To be truthful she's been turning into one of those for quite a while now. She has a great sense of humour and now she's on the move she just doesn't look like a baby any more.

We had a big family party and she happily munched her way through the buffet twice! Helped by cutting her two top front teeth. Her other bottom one is nearly here also so she will soon have four and hopefully the food world will then be her oyster.

So here are just a few pictures from the big day. She never seems to like cake so I didn't have the camera handy when we gave her some. Predicatably she wolfed it! It was layers of victoria sandwich with chocolate buttercream and this yummy yummy chocolate icing made from boiling cream and melting in dark chocolate until you like the taste. It then firms up into chocolate fudge in the fridge which you spread over and then put the whole cake back in the fridge if you aren't going to be eating it in the next few hours. I made mine the day before and found that adding some orange juice to the cake mixture stopped it from going claggy.

Naomi is such a carb loader that I think she's going to be a marathon runner like her dad! So here she is enjoying, as ever, some lovely yummy french bread.

She had a wonderful day with lots of lovely presents and attention.

So I leave you with my favourite picture of the day of my gorgeous gorgeous little cutie!

more firsts!

The last week has been a bit odd as Naomi ran a very high temperature all day Thursday with no other symptoms. The GP refused to see her after a discussion over the telephone but fortunately I'd had a long chat with NHS Direct. And then, at teatime it suddenly disappeared never to return!

And we were out and about at the weekend with friends. So once again I have a big posting gap that I didn't intend. Apologies to our regular readers ;-)

The last couple of days Naomi has got very good at dipping the spoon into things and then getting it straight into her mouth without waving it about. OK so not much food gets on there but if its fruit puree or something similar it does coat the back of the spoon. So the idea is catching on!

Tonight it was in the tomato sauce from our pasta. She had her own sausages, veg & gnocchi and we thought we'd try her on the sauce coz you have to keep plugging away at these things. And, whoopie doo, it went in. Both on the spoon and by hand. In fact she cleared her bowl. So here is my very tomatoey daughter - something I thought I wouldn't be seeing for quite some time to come yet!

She does after all use a fork with great skill. Interestingly, although not in these photos(!), she does seem to be favouring the left hand. Her Daddy is sinister while I am right-handed. But her brother did this also and he is firmly right handed, though handy with his left nonetheless, so we'll have to see.

legoland

We have collected Tesco vouchers to give us Annual Passes to Legoland so I persuaded my husband we should go today while he was around. Then I would know how easy it will be to take the 2 kids by myself. Sadly not very as hardly any of the rides allow you to hold a baby and Naomi is too small for many of them. But she's free so it won't do any harm to go for a couple of hours here and there and then try and rope in visitors when we have them.

So it was just an ordinary snacky picnic for lunch but in the afternoon Naomi found something much better to eat ;-) For some reason, keys are just SO the thing of the moment!

hungrier?

Another good eating day today AND a full night's sleep last night so spirits are high here despite the rain. Naomi polished off a good bowl of porridge into which I'd mashed half a banana and she then demanded strawberries. There were only a couple left and they were from my birthday breakfast so I'd put them in my bowl. And there she was pointing and 'saying' give me or mine! So I gave in and she had a whale of a time with them. Phewee. Must get some raspberries and see if she'll take to those too. If I can get her to eat soft fruit she'll be 16-17 months by the autumn/ winter and I might have more success with hard fruit at that age.

The rest of the day was quite boring in that she had no new things. Pate & tomato sandwich for lunch and bacon & egg loaf for tea. She insisted on eating the asparagus woody end first. Maybe it was just a great teether!

So we'll keep plugging away at the lesser amount of milk and see. Once I know its going OK we'll switch to cow's milk and see how that goes. Gosh its tough this feeding lark. Wish I could wave a magic wand and have her be 4! Only joking!

more new tastes

I'm always a bit concerned that Naomi's finicky eating means we've missed the best 'taste window' for getting her to eat new things easily. There is thinking that this is between 6 and 9 months or so. And yet there are things that you technically shouldn't feed to a baby before certain ages - shellfish and eggs before the age of 1 for instance. So it must be possible, I try and reassure myself, for new tastes to be accepted all the time.

Breakfast was a repeat of yesterday's fruit fest except with Weetabix this time. And when she'd cleared the bowl she then ate 3 whole strawberries by hand. Better make sure we have them in the house at all times over the summer then, shame ha ha.

For lunch then I decided to try her on an egg sandwich. She has had a lot of omelettes which she really likes and she will eat scrambled. So I hardboiled it for 7 minutes and mashed it with the tiniest scrape of salad cream. Spread onto the bread I pressed tiny bits of chopped up cucumber into it and hoped for the best. The first tastes were obviously 'interesting' as little bits of white came out again. But then she got the hang of it or couldn't be bothered to resist and ate the whole piece I had prepared for her. As we've now got her to eat ordinary flavoured yogurt - we have Yeo Valley Organic - I bought apricot this week and she devoured it plus 2nds and 3rds.

Mexican chicken was on the dinner menu. She's had it once before and really went for the kidney beans. No such luck this time, we had to get them in with the broccoli on the fork. Bit naughty I know as it means she's not totally in control but she was very accepting. She also loved the savoury rice we served it with, which was fantastic. We've had a big struggle getting her to accept rice at all but she was just asking and asking and asking for more. I'd cooked some gnocchi just in case she didn't want the rice, so we gave her some of those as well or else Daddy would have lost half his dinner to the little gannet.

She DIDN'T sleep through last night. A great time was NOT had by all between 3 and 4.45am, especially me who was up with her because I can't bear leaving her to cry. So lets hope tonight is better. We have cut her milk to 7oz and 8oz instead of 6,6, and 8 because I felt she might be having too much and thereby not eating enough solids. She gets plenty of cheese and yogurt so I'm not worried about her calcium. So we'll see. I won't switch her to cows milk until the reduction is accepted as its thinner. And I might leave the bedtime bottle as formula anyway given that her sleep is so prone to being knocked off balance.

But all in all, today has been good! She's eaten very well. Maybe no new grey hairs for me.

birthday day

Hi, this is Naomi herself here (ha ha!) Today is Mummy's birthday so I thought I would post myself.

Its been quite a quiet day food wise. I had porridge, which is normal, but Daddy had bought Mummy some of her favourite blueberries and strawberries and because he chopped them up very very small I agreed to eat them. Normally I won't touch a blueberry at 20 paces and strawberries are better for teething on than actually eating. So there were lots of smiles and I got some toast afterwards too. I'll do anything for bread.

Mummy said I must be teething as I was very hot and very grumpy and so I went straight to bed after church and slept for 2 hours. This means I missed lunch and got a very large bottle of milk instead. This doesn't happen often but I think Mummy was worried I would get dehydrated. It was yummy. I do so love milk! And then I got offered something called 'cake'. I don't normally get this, whatever it is, and so I spat it out. It was carrot cake and Daddy & Luke had made it. But I still didn't want it. Apparently it is my turn for this birthday lark in 2 weeks time so what Mummy is going to do about cake then she says she doesn't know. Lots of people are coming to see me so I think they will have to eat it for themselves!

We went out to Pizza Express for tea as it is Luke's favourite - funny, I thought it was Mummy's birthday? - and Daddy had brought along a couple of my mini pies/quiches. I got a bit of garlic bread too but I know Mummy & Daddy worry about my fruit and veg intake (aren't I a minx!) and so they don't like me having just the pizza. The quiches are VERY yummy anyway so I ate them with great relish and looked around for more. So a whole Summer Pudding fruit pot came my way too! And a big bottle of milk when I got home. So maybe I will be very nice to Mummy & Daddy and carry on sleeping through after my little blip when I wasn't so well last week.

I like this posting for myself lark, might have to do it more often ;-)

day out at Woburn

One of the forums I post on, Babycentre UK, has long been a lifeline to me. I discovered it when pregnant with my son and we went to Woburn Safari Park yesterday to celebrate the birthdays of our 4 year olds (eek!). Its about 90 minutes from us and so it did mean that Naomi's food routine was all out of the window. But she coped incredibly well.

We took our own picnic and so she had a cheese sandwich (as per usual!) which they fortunately turned a blind eye to us eating in the restaurant. It was pouring with rain or else we would have eaten outside and we did buy a bowl of chips for us. She also enjoyed her rice cakes whilst going round to see the animals for a second time!

We stayed for tea which was a disgustingly overpriced breaded chicken, roast potatoes & veg. Fortunately we could peel off the coating and the chicken itself was fine. And she adores that kind of meal. But they bill it as being so healthy which it isn't really given that its captive market cafe food. *sigh* Still once very very occasionally won't hurt.

But she refused my friend's attempts to get her to eat melon. Fruit very much still an issue. Although, my ds has only just started to enjoy salad so maybe Naomi will be the same and I just have to wait. She still only has the one tooth and maybe I am just mis-remembering Luke's eating through the sands of time since 2003/2004!

softly softly ducky monkey....

Yes yes I know its supposed to be 'softly softly catchee monkey' but Naomi has decided that instead of speaking words she will do animal sounds instead! And does both a great monkey and a fantastic duck. She can also say something that sounds very like 'duck' but I might just be imagining that. She will do the sounds to order which is just hilarious.

As for food? Well because she was throwing up we've had to go gently. The hospital told us to keep offering the food because as her age she needs the nutrition. But a lot has gone rejected at various times over the last couple of days. And she's back to night waking although she did give us a full night through last night so hopefully it was just a blip. She'd had mini quiches for tea which she absolutely loves. We've also managed to very successfully make the switch to ordinary organic yogurt instead of Petit Filous. Strawberry flavour only at the moment but she's like a gannet with it and today even managed to feed herself a little off the spoon. I've not been well or else there would be a photo of it!

bank holiday poorly and so not very interested

Although Naomi has been fine since her tumble she has a viral infection and is back to throwing up her solid food. She hasn't done this for a couple of months so its been a bit of a shock and we thought it might be related to the head bump. fortunately not but it means the weekend has been a bit of a washout regarding food.

We went to our favourite pub on Saturday night and she didn't want any of Dan's beef pie or my chicken. shame, as it was served with a gorgeous cheesy potato gratin which would have gone down a treat.

Sunday was a wash out but today, Monday, has been better. She ate and kept down her lunch (cheese sandwich) and seems to have been OK with the bacon & egg loaf. It's certainly the thing to have gone down with most gusto in the last few days. Fingers crossed that the vomiting has passed. Her milk has been staying down which is the best thing although it has meant a return to night feeding when she doesn't keep her dinner down.

tumble tumble

We were doing really well until tonight when Naomi fell backwards from standing and bumped her head. She yelled straight away and was absolutely against all the worry criteria but she threw up the dinner she had just eaten and was then very reluctant to eat much more.

So the mini quiches that she devoured with such gusto went to waste.

mixed success with fruit

We are still really struggling to get Naomi to eat proper fruit. Bananas and strawberries are all she will countenance. I tried a piece of apple again tonight as Luke was eating one and she was pointing at it and vocalising strongly (!) But *sigh* no go as usual. Even when I started eating the remainder of the one I had cut up for her and she was pointing at it also.

But I did manage to get her to eat pureed pear (admittedly out of a jar) mixed in with some natural yogurt. We are trying, as we did with her brother, to wean her off Petit Filous and onto 'proper' yogurt with fruit in it. He's a real addict of frozen berries warmed up and served with natural yogurt & sprinkled cinnamon, yum yum. But she's been wise to our plan up till now.... So I was really pleased when not only did it go down, quickly and in quantity, but she was going 'yum yum' at it too! I wish I could capture that sound in a photo.

sweetcorn

I was making another bacon & egg loaf today since its so easy and it seemed silly to use up the freezer stock when Naomi was napping and Luke & I could have fun in the kitchen together. And so I decided to put some sweetcorn in it. Peas & sweetcorn on their own are really quite difficult for children as there's nothing really to bite down on and a lot of kids don't like the texture of the skin. But being held together in the context of the loaf seemed to make sense.

Went down alright! She didn't notice, as was expected. Although she didn't eat as much as I would have liked because I served hers with gnocchi so that Luke could have the rarity of proper oven chips (we eat a lot of home-made wedges) and I made the mistake of putting the gnocchi where she could see them. She is gnocchi mad and I usually hide them until she has made good progress on whatever else I've given her for dinner.

asparagus

In at attempt to widen Naomi's intake of fruit & veg we decided to take advantage of it being asparagus season. I know it can be bought all year round from somewhere but we do try and shop seasonally and English asparagus is around for about the next 8 weeks.

Shame that what DH bought was actually Spanish but he bought if from the little greengrocer near work and I guess it didn't occur to him that it might not be from the UK.

Here is Naomi making short work of it. It does seem to give her terrible wind :-)

liver ..... yum yum

Well it will soon be Naomi's Nanny's 'big' birthday, and also her Grandad's birthday, and so we went out for a pub lunch to celebrate with the rest of the family. Lovely pub with great food but the highchairs had no tray. Not usually a problem for BLW except that the food on the menu wasn't exactly Naomi friendly and she was asleep when we ordered but awake before it came (typical) and so she was sharing our plates rather than having her own.

But DH had liver, bacon & mash and she was wolfing her share. We cooked liver for her some time ago at home but we obviously didn't do it well enough as she refused it then. AND this was going in off a fork! It was the second time we'd tried her on mash and it was still a hit so we'll have to look out what potatoes we can to do it with over the summer.

I had chicken in mushroom sauce which are all flavours she loves but she also accepted RICE! off the fork! Maybe she knew it was a special special day!

more fruit rejection but thumbs up to pate

It's been a busy busy week! Ds's first full week at primary nursery year and it has just flown by. He's loving it though so that is fantastic.

It does mean we've fallen into a bit of a boring pattern. Porridge or weetabix with fruit (pot or raw) for breakfast and sandwich of some kind for lunch. Then we try and vary dinner as much as possible. I decided to try her on pate this week as we had some left over from being away at the weekend and she loved it. I know they say not until 1 but she's nearly that and it won't be a regular thing.

But she completely refused the prunes! I was a bit miffed actually as I accidentally bought the ones you have to pre-soak as they had stones in and were cheaper than the stoned ones. And I thought why pay someone else to stone them. Ho hum!

And the only thing she wants to do with cherry tomatoes is squish them *sigh*

bacon and egg loaf

Time goes so fast. Can't believe it is 10 days since I last posted. Oops. In a way nothing much to report. Naomi's eating is as good as ever & she's doing really well. She's even deigned to eat strawberries! Must be a soft fruit lover like her mother. I really struggle in the winter.

But we do have a new success. We've had a recipe thread on Naomi's birth board on BabyCentre for quite some time now and I decided I needed to save them onto my computer. Amongst them was a bacon and egg loaf. Dead easy & quick to do so I made some and she basically inhaled it whole. Went absolutely mad for it. As did ds & dh which was great too. In fact ds asked for it tonight until he was told he was getting pizza ;-)

Its all measured in cup sizes & I can see that it will be really really adaptable. And it freezes well because Naomi did have some tonight and it was just as lovely as first time round.

first teeth clean

Yes, I know, loosely related to food! But there are things going on in Naomi's life besides what she eats that I just want to keep a record of. So, tonight, we cleaned her little solitary tooth for the first time! She cut it on the 18th March but its taken time to really come through the gum enough to have a tooth brush used on it.

We had chicken kebabs cooked on the bbq tonight, yum yum. With new potatoes - the first of the season, broccoli, carrot and cabbage. Unfortunately she just sucked on the cabbage really without doing much with it. But ds gobbled it down without a murmur, yahey! He and DH had been mowing the lawn & doing other pottering so he was very hungry, but even so.

Had our first ever food refusal at dinner. DH had put green & red pepper between the chicken on the kebabs so decided to give Naomi a piece of the red, as it should have been sweeter. Well you'd think she'd been poisoned. We had angry protests not short of tears and much coughing. Maybe NOT so sweet after all! And I don't really mind since we're not likely to be giving her lots of it just at the moment. But she's eaten everything, and I mean everything, so far so it was just a bit of a surprise. And she became quite wary for a bit afterwards, insisting on having the food on her fork so she could truly inspect it.

easter away

Decided to go and visit MIL & FIL for Easter. They usually come to us as SIL lives not too far from us in their direction. But its quite a trek so thought they should have us on home turf. Managed not to pack everything but OR including the kitchen sink and set off for the sunny Fens of Cambridgeshire.

My MIL is a great cook so we had 48hrs of being fed without having to cook it or to think of a menu. Yummy chicken casserole and roast pork both easily disappeared into the gannets I seem to have for children and there was lovely Easter cake for tea along with french bread, cheese, pate, ham etc etc etc. Naomi was in seventh heaven and I think MIL & FIL really enjoyed seeing her at the table and enjoying the food they had put together for her.
She is loving using her fork but she is still going for the all in one method - that's putting all of her fingers in with the food ha ha - not quite managing it for the camera with this broccoli but she looks so cute doing it all for herself I had to post the piccy. I thought 'me do it' didn't start until they were about 18 months lol.

lots to catch up on

Just realised I haven't posted since Saturday! We've just been busy busy busy.

On Sunday we had that old staple roast chicken so it will be no surprise that she ate it! I love doing a roast, its so easy for her. It also gives me the ingredients for mini pies & mini quiches already done and I needed to do a batch of both for the freezer.

Monday: the kids had fish fingers as we were having the leftover chicken with salad and I thought it might be a bit tough for Naomi cold. It goes a bit chewy, stringy & dry and she's still only got the one tooth.

Tuesday: jacket potatoes & sausages

Wednesday: at Luke's request Daddy made lasagne, yum yum. Absolutely no good for Naomi as she doesn't seem to like mince. So she had a quiche & a pie from the new batch - good job I made them.

And that brings up to date tonight. I made a chicken pie a la Nigella. Meant cooking up some chicken breasts as there wasn't anything left from the weekend's roast. But also meant I could do some bacon at the same time. Simple white sauce, few veg & a pastry top. Voila! And easy enough to put together throughout the day as Naomi was sleeping or otherwise occupied. Not easy to do today as she's been a grumpy so and so. Don't really know why. At least her new swing was a bit hit. Couldn't find the one we bought last summer so had to go out and buy another! Worth it though just to see her smile & hear her giggle.

first taste of tuna

We've been meaning to give Naomi tuna for a while but never really got around to it. I don't like fish of any description so DH knows I won't kiss him if he's been eating it lol! DS liked it as a small child and then went off it completely which was a bit of a pain because tuna, pasta, sweetcorn seems to be every Mum's standby dish! He does still eat ordinary fish - salmon, haddock etc., just not tinned so I will forgive him.

Today the weather was so nice we went to Wellington Country Park just over the Hampshire border and had lunch there too. We bought a ham & cheese sandwich and a tuna one for DH to share with Naomi and the reaction was just fab. On the first mouthful you could see her mulling it over, knowing it was different to the piece with cheese she had just eaten. But after that there was no stopping her! She's also getting really proficient at using her cup (piccie from earlier in the week)

For dinner she had an omelette with some leftover chicken, broccoli, peas, sweetcorn & tomato. We were having spaghetti bolognaise which she just won't countenance!

I know this is a blog mostly about food but had to share some more piccies from today. I should point out that the teacake was MINE and I did get to eat virtually all of it!

went to the pub again

People will think we are terrible parents, taking our kids to the pub quite a bit. But I just love the freedom of being able to take the children out knowing that there will be something good that we can feed them. We've recently discovered a nice pub not too far away - regular readers will remember the post about taking the kids for roast lamb when DH was away for the weekend. So because he worked yesterday, when he normally doesn't on Friday, and we are still being decorated, we decided to be decadent.

I had chicken breast in an asparagus, bacon & cream sauce with crushed new potatoes and seasonal veg (leek, carrot, courgette). So that was Naomi sorted really well. She was loving it ALL. And Dh had gammon ham, egg & chips so we gave her some of his ham too. She didn't get the lemon tart or Luke's strawberry ice-cream though. I didn't get that carried away!

She's still munching porridge for breakfast and a sandwich of some kind for her lunch.

been eating food

Apologies to my regular readers that I've not been up to date this week! Luke was 4 on Monday and his party was the Saturday. So I've been very busy making a haunted castle cake and having 15 children run my house ragged! He had a fantastic time, which was lovely, but it left little free moments for anything else. We are also having our kitchen/diner decorated. Got fed up with bare plaster after only 15 months of looking at it ha ha.

Well, as the title says, Naomi continues to eat. She is growing out of some of her clothes at an enormous rate because of her little fat tummy & her big cloth nappied bum. But since she has started to walk this week if you hold her hands (woohoo AT LAST!) maybe that will change! Her balance is really good standing so maybe she won't end up being later than average after all, she'll just skip the crawling.

Must really try and vary her diet. We are due a Tesco order so I will look for different veg. Leeks maybe, I think they might work since she eats broccoli fine! And she really likes parsnip. Still goes mad for a carrot though, her eyesight had better be good.

We had lovely roast lamb on Sunday which she and Luke just completely demolished. But I need to make more baby pies & quiches as she's had those over the last few days also. The decorating means we are eating in the playroom and can't really cook much until M has finished and he likes to knock off around 5.30pm which is late for my two to eat. But he's doing a fantastic job and will be onto the downstairs cloakroom at the end of tomorrow so I can have my kitchen back!


Have been trying to get a decent piccy of my two for ages and completely failed but here is the best I can do!

baked potatoes

Yes, that old standby! Well it was Dh in charge because he came home a little early so I could have some 'me' time and get my hair cut. Luke has his birthday party on Saturday so not only do I want to look nice for that but it means no chance of doing it at the weekend.

So baked tatties it was. We all love them so its not a problem. OK, so sausages aren't the best thing but we have organic ones for Naomi so they are better than some. And she only has one with lots of veg. Still can't get her to consider baked beans. Wonder if its a texture thing, like mince?

I had the bright idea of mashing up some blackberries in her porridge this morning. I bought them as ANOTHER fruit to try and she wasn't that keen, even though they are lovely and sweet. But, as I thought, she ate them mixed in with something else so will try them in yogurt next time. She happily eats Petit Filous but I want, as I did with ds, to move her onto fruit & natural yogurt in the not too distant future as its better for her and more variable.

Little piggy also had 24oz of formula today because Luke didn't want porridge and as I make up her bottles the night before, it was ready made to hand. So she had 6oz on her breakfast and her normal 3x6oz. Despite having a cold that, this evening, made drinking difficult for the first time that I can remember. Hope it doesn't develop into anything worse. Her nose has been running for about 2 weeks(!) but we'd put that down to teething...... watch this space.

more more more

of the same, but, hey, she's eating! DH was running late from work as he took the morning off so I could go somewhere without the children. So we had quiche & wedges. AGAIN I hear you cry but Naomi loves them. In fact she ate TWO of the mini ones I make for her along with the veg. She's got such a little podgy tummy with all this noshing she is doing.

But a number of people who haven't seen her for a while have commented that she's looking bigger and that her face has filled out - its always been rather slender - so that's good. She IS growing!

We had pancakes for breakfast and gave her slices off the edge before they were smothered in syrup and despite having eaten 1.5 weetabix she happily scoffed the lot. They are very yummy, Daddy has perfected the recipe!

is feeding going to get easier - BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

Woohoo! Naomi is no longer a gummy bear! Yes, tooth number 1 has FINALLY broken the surface. Luke was 1 day short of 11 months when he cut his first tooth, and incidentally, ate his first finger food(!) so I've not been too surprised that Naomi has taken a while. She is 9 months and 18 days today. But she has been showing signs of teething since she was only 3 months old. And I can see lots of teeth in her gums waiting in the wings, particularly the top two at the front, you can see their shapes really really clearly.

So its through, very easily in fact!, so hopefully she will be as good a teether as her brother who cut 3 of his 4 back molars without my knowing. I just opened his mouth one day and there they were. They also say that the longer they take to start coming through the stronger they are and the longer they last. We shall see! Luke is 4 and his teeth are very healthy. This he gets from his dad's side of the family (I have awful teeth) so I'm hoping Naomi will follow suit.

But whether her eating will get any easier I don't know? Might have to wait until she has the top 4 and they stop food really shooting out! Having waited 11 months to start Luke then cut the first 10 in the next 6 months. So we'll just have to wait and see. A lovely present for Mothering Sunday.

roast roast roast

Like her big brother (and her parents ha ha) Naomi absolutely loves a roast dinner. This is good because they are easy to cook and you can have leftovers of meat for the following few days. I find that this meat is so much more tender than, say, a chicken breast. So we all get to indulge.

And today we didn't even have to cook it ourselves! We went to see DH's sister as she had a second son a month ago and we've not been able to see him yet because we were all so ill. Her husband had cooked absolutely yummy yummy roast pork which went down very well. I had talked about BLW to my SIL before but they'd not seen it in action. There were we all munching and so was Naomi at the corner of the table, pork in one hand, roast potato in another and she'd have had her nose down in the waiting carrot if she'd had half a chance. It was so lovely.

She's been ravenous all day, this growth spurt is just going on and on and on. But, as DH pointed out, she's been ill for so much of the last few weeks she had a lot to catch up on.

party party party

More porridge for breakfast, getting a bit of a pattern here! But its so good for the children and no wheat which, given how much she likes a sandwich I do worry about. And we can get fruit into it so we win on all fronts!

Luke had been invited to a 4th birthday party today so we all schlepped over to Bushey and had a great time. It was at a soft play centre so Naomi sat in the ball pit and bashed them together. It had a netting structure for the sides and she thought it was hilarious that we threw the balls against Daddy who was peering in from the other side! Not that I let her have the party food as they had chips, fishfingers & pizza followed by very chocolately cake (which was VERY yummy but don't tell her!). So she had more hummous sandwiches, a petit filous and some banana.

But if that wasn't enough, tonight she ate a whole 2-egg omelette, at least half of a fruit pot and some more banana. In fact DH said he stopped feeding her because he was afraid she'd eaten too much. And she STILL had a 7oz bottle before bed. Long may the growth spurt continue. There was a baby at the party today who was born 2 weeks after Naomi and she was much bigger. But then she was being fed the traditional way. And the more I read and see about BLW, the more I see that babies regulate their own intake and I have to trust this. Its just that I'm slightly taller than average and my husband and brother are very tall so I'd like her to have some height too. Ho hum. All in the genes and I can do zilch about them!

hollow legs?......

I swear my daughter must have hollow legs. Or, more likely, an ever expanding tummy & thighs. Hope she doesn't blame it on me when she's a teenager if she still has them lol.

Huge amount of porridge & fruit puree disappeared for breakfast and only 2 hrs later she drank 7oz of milk! Lunch was a hummous and tomato sandwich on brown bread. We try not to give her too much brown as it fills children up too quickly but neither do we want them to eat all white. She had 2 whole slices with filling and then more melon. She ate more of it than yesterday, very proud of using her little fork!

Dinner was salmon with her daddy & brother. I don't like fish so I had honey & mustard chicken, but she was wolfing it down. It was only her 2nd try of salmon and she was a bit ambivalent last time but she often is about new things. Accompanied by the *usual* carrot, broccoli & potato. Sigh, we're not very adventurous poor love. But her first tooth is definitely on the way, I can really see it in the gum. And that's going to change a lot of things for the better I'm sure.

new tastes!

Well both kids are now eating us out of house and home! I really hope Naomi is growing lengthwise as well as a chubby tummy and thighs lol ! We'll get her measured in April when she next sees the paediatrician. She ate one and a half weetabix for breakfast with added banana. There was me telling Daddy to persevere as the bowl wasn't empty and I know how much porridge she gets through and he said 'its her second one'. Wow.

Following on from someone's advice I bought a melon yesterday and we gave her some after lunch. Much to my surprise, given her opinions on fruit, she was very keen. We gave her a little moon shape and she tried to eat the skin bit so then we cut it off that and put it onto her fork. She is so proud of eating like a proper person. So will try more tomorrow.

And then, tonight, DH had cooked chinese chicken with noodles. He cooked her veg separately just in case but the chicken came out of the wok and she ate four large strips. The noodles were funny though, she shook them as if they were a worm and she a bird ha ha! So we twirled them like you would spaghetti and this gave her a much better purchase on them with her gums. Her front bottom tooth is definitely coming though so who knows where we will be when it does. She also ate some mushroom for the first time and that was a big hit too. Yahay!

food *glorious* food

Oh to be able to employ a chef! I just hate it when mid-afternoon rolls round and thoughts turn to dinner. Quite why I hate it so much I don't know but it would be glorious to have a good looking man [ ;-) ] present me with a menu and then cook my choice from it. What bliss.

Ah well, dream over! Another good day today though. More porridge than usual for breakfast, she'll be having as much as her big brother at this rate. With lots of banana mashed into it.

For lunch I remembered, hurrah, that she will eat grated cheese & apple sandwiches - great way to sneak in some fresh fruit! - so she ate two slices of bread with this as the filling. And then a Petit Filous yogurt. Did some googling because on Naomi's birth board a little while ago there was an outcry about yogurts that contain cochineal. Some people didn't know what it was and then found out. And I've been a bit concerned that PF contains locust bean gum. But this turns out to be something you tap out of a carob tree. Phew.

I'd been shopping this afternoon for bits and pieces so in a fit of despair and frustration I cooked them fresh pasta ravioli. Since I meant to make my own and hugely failed last month. This had bacon & chicken for a filling and I gave Luke some tomato sauce but Naomi had hers naked. She usually has a problem with pasta but once I trimmed off the spare corners she did really really well. I was amazed. She had it with the traditional broccoli and carrot - memo to self, MUST find some more vegetables that she will eat.

She was pretty full after that but had some apple & blueberry jar for pudding. I do beat myself up regularly about not making my own fruit puree anymore but I remember a friend whose daughter would not eat any main course jar, even in an emergency. Therefore, she said, that seeing as she had to cook all that for her, she wasn't going to get despondent about jars of pudding. I am trying to do the same. And they do such lovely combinations. You could use the apple one as sauce to go with roast pork ha ha.

going great guns!

I really don't want to tempt fate by posting ha ha but Naomi has eaten really well the last two days. Long may it continue! She is having either weetabix or porridge for breakfast, with added fruit, and she will happily accept this off a spoon, funny minx. As she slept through again the last two nights I conclude that she is very hungry and so not in any mood to be difficult.

Lunch is very much sandwich based. I really need to find some new ideas otherwise she's in danger of having 3 wheat meals a day, which I really tried to avoid with Luke. But she's anti so much fruit and veg that its difficult. We do have a wide variety of spreads/fillings though. Today she had ham and Port Salut cheese which she, like the rest of us, absolutely adores!

We had quiche for dinner last night with home-made wedges & veg so I gave her one of the ones I made specially. Its so cute to see her with a slice of that in one hand and half a potato in the other.

Tonight we were having lasagne. She doesn't much care for the texture of mince but did consent to eat a couple of spoonfuls so that's a result. Before I put the mustard in the cheese sauce I put some to one side for her so she had a kind of vegetable fondue medley with gnocchi on the side.

And she still polished off 3 bottles as well today. The last 2 days she's dropped her afternoon bottle because of her sleeping pattern when out and about but we were back to normal so she's had 3x6oz. I'm not surprised she weighed 17lbs 14.5oz (8.12kg) when the Health Visitor came today. She has a right chubby tummy on her! If it carries on I'm going to have to go up to 12-18 month clothes for the waist room.

we went to visit the pub today.........

Well, seeing as how DH was having a boys' night away and they were all going to the pub for lunch I decided we would too. We had roast lamb and it really shows how great BLW can be. No spooning puree into Naomi in between cold mouthfuls of my own dinner where possible. She just sat there as pleased as punch eating whatever I gave her. Unfortunately the highchair didn't have a tray and was the wrong height for the table but she managed great and not too much mess on the floor!

So roast lamb, roast potato, carrot and cauliflower. At one point I had some lined up on the edge of the plate to cool and when I next looked up from cutting up ds's meat, the nearest bit of meat had gone. Cheeky monkey had lent over and helped herself coz I was obviously being too slow!!!!!!

She was very interested in my lemon & raspberry tart, despite having had most of a fruit pot for her own dessert. Her sign for 'more' was very much in evidence. Thankfully the merest lick was enough and I got to finish it in peace, it was very very yummy!

more more more!

Despite having a cold and, AT LAST, seemingly cutting one or more teeth, Naomi has been eating really well the last few days and continuing to sleep through the night bar one of the last five. Hooray!

DH is away overnight tonight so it had to be something simple. Roll out the fishfingers! I really should get around to making my own when I make up the next batch of mini pies & quiches and am in a cooky mood. So it was Mr Tesco who have now removed the hydrogenated vegetable fat (trans fat) from all their own brand products. Excellent! I usually peel off the batter anyway but now it doesn't matter if she gets a little bit. She also ate some broccoli, some carrots that I remembered to steam for much longer(!) and one and a half large home made potato wedges. Followed by Petit Filous and an 8oz bottle at bedtime. What a chubby tummy she will have ha ha.

But its so good to see her eating! And DH said she didn't eat much breakfast so she was probably making up for that. She had a huge sandwich for lunch and a lot more banana than I've seen her eat in a while.

normal service is resumed!

I know I haven't posted for absolutely ages! We've all been ill, me the most - 10 days in bed unable to sleep or eat. So its been very ad hoc and I really couldn't tell you what Naomi has been eating coz I've been so out of it.

But we are all nicely on the mend. Naomi has even slept through the last 3 nights, woohoo! Had a big success at the weekend with a lamb casserole. Went and bought proper neck of lamb chops from the butcher and tried to make it like my dad does. So just root veg, no pepper or mushrooms or weird stuff like that. And it was so yummy! Twice cooked for extra flavour and so you can remove much of the lamb fat, the meat was just falling apart. Made it very very easy for Naomi and she really liked the sweetness of very soft carrot. And her first peas!

So she's had 2 lots of lamb this week as there was only a small amount of leftovers. She's also continuing to munch her way through the mini pies and quiches that I made. We had spaghetti bolognaise but not only can she not manage pasta - we often use gnocchi - she really doesn't like the texture of mince. Proper meat she's absolutely fine with so I guess we'll just persevere with that and keep trying her on mince from time to time as she gets older.

She also had some strawberries at a friend's house. OK, so most of it went on her trousers! but I can quite see that when she finally has some teeth to chew them with they could be a big hit. Maybe she's taking after me, I'm much more of a summer fruit & berries person.

munch munch munch............................... munch munch munch

My daughter has been replaced by a gannet! Her appetite has well and truly returned and she's opening her mouth wide and leaning forward for the spoon/fork if you aren't quick enough for her. And that's something new in itself, she is so much more receptive to being fed at the moment. I know, I know, its not BLW. But then we didn't start out to do BLW and being able to feed her, when required, means she can eat more of the things that we habitually eat. Which IS, in my opinion, the whole point of BLW anyway. We still stop feeding her the minute she pushes us away and lots of the meal, wherever possible, is still put on her tray so she can do it herself. That way she is definitely in control of how much she is eating rather than us, which is very very important. But its been much more of a halfway house these last couple of days which is definitely less stressful all round.

Tonight ds decided he wanted chicken fingers so together with daddy he egged, breadcrumbed and then baked some strips of chicken, to go with vegetable chilli & rice. Naomi could have had the fingers as they were home-made but DH wanted to have a go at making her an omelette as only I have so far. He chose the newest of our frying pans which I had thought to be a bit on the large side, except it isn't really. And he produced an omelette that Jamie Oliver would have been proud of, rather than my rather more 'unstructured' looking offerings. Stuffed with chicken, tomato, red pepper, cheese, courgette and spinach it was a lovely meal for Naomi and she was duly appreciative! I was very pleased with the spinach going in because its so full of iron. Although, as someone told me the other day, broccoli is very iron rich and the fact that she loves potatoes, which are full of Vitamin C, will really help, since Vitamin C aids iron absorption.

For pudding we had baked apples stuffed with mincemeat. Another first! Naomi ate more of an apple tonight than I have ever seen. Will have to do those again since we all like them too ;-) She's back on full strength milk as well so hopefully no repetition of last night when she had 3/4 strength 5oz of milk at 12am and 3am as well as yelling for more milk not long after 7. I should think she's having a growth spurt as well as a return to form.

self feeding.... something she's done at an earlier age than her big brother

Although Naomi is not behind 'the average' in terms of hitting milestones, she does seem to be behind her big brother who was very early at many many things. But, today, Naomi has well and truly beaten him. As you can see from the photo she used a fork to feed herself!

Luke ate anything and everything from 4 months when we weaned him but always off a spoon. You couldn't get him to do finger food for love nor money until he cut his first tooth at the age of 11 months. Nary a breadstick, a raisin or a piece of toast. If you tried to guide a piece of something he was holding to his mouth he would have a hissy fit. So he was 1 year and 3 days when he first used a spoon. Naomi is 8 months and 19 days! Yeah!

Ok, so half the time she picked the food off with the other hand and put it in that way but she's definitely already got the hang of what to do and how to make it work. I'm so so chuffed!!!!!

back to normal thank goodness!

Haven't posted for a few days because Naomi's cold has put her right off her food. But during the last two days we really seem to have turned a corner. No more vomit for a start! She had gone really downhill after my last post, I was running out of clean clothes again :-(

I've really seen the benefits of BLW this week as we've been out twice over lunch time and I've been able to order a sandwich for Luke & Naomi to share. Wednesday it was ham and today it was cheese. Makes life so much more simple. She's still wary of any fruit that isn't a banana but will happily eat a fruit pot off a spoon, contrary madam, and they are very easy to carry around.

This evening she had salmon for the first time. We're not sure she totally liked it, its stronger than the cod she has been having. But it went it and stayed in, mostly. Although she has developed a habit of putting something in her mouth, or allowing you to put it in, and then immediately taking it straight out to have a look at it before having another go. Its priceless if annoying! At least less is going on the floor lately which is another bonus.

who ate all the pies.........?

I'll give you one guess ha ha! Thanks to a recipe from another May 06 Mummy also doing BLW, I made some puff pastry pies and filled them with left overs that I had. So there was roast chicken, sweet & ordinary potato, cauliflower and red leicester cheese for moistness. About the size of a mince pie they cook in 20 minutes, are great cold in the fridge and also freeze & reheat really well.
Naomi simply devours them and I can see that they will be great for out and about days.

I also got a good book from the library on finger food. I had it when ds was little 3 years ago but we never had these challenges with him so I never did much from it. But given the success with the pies, I can see that the spring rolls, pancakes, samosas and mini quiches should be a great hit with the little madam. Can't wait to get started!

She's as full of cold as ever but she is still eating, drinking her milk and sleeping well without the Medised that we had been using. Long may it continue!

you can do yogurt the BLW way

A good couple of days in the H household. Yesterday we had a roast chicken which is NEVER refused by the little lady and it gives us lots of meat for using in subsequent days. I really like cooking them too so winners all round!

Today we had chilli from the freezer because Naomi failed to nap properly and I needed something quick. Because she hates a spoon this is a real problem for us to give to her so I made her another omelette. I fully expected it to be rejected - 'I only ate it last time to fool you ha ha' - but no, she demolished a whole 2-egg one with chicken, mushroom, tomato & cheese and Daddy was here to see it.

She also ate a ham sandwich at lunchtime which was another first and something else in the repetoire now. And, as the title suggests, I took an amusing photo....

i will never not ever eat fruit

With apologies to Charlie & Lola !!!!

Yes, we had another fruit refusal today. I stewed Naomi some apple so that it would be soft for her to gum but it still wasn't enough. So that's apple, apricot, raspberry and mango she has refused to eat in the original state. I'm running out of ideas! She can't JUST eat bananas! To be fair she did have pureed apricot mixed into her porridge and she ate stewed apple in her porridge for Daddy yesterday. So we'll continue the subterfuge and hope she'll get the idea of proper fruit soon. Maybe it will come with teeth, I don't know.

Another good dinner; her cold doesn't seem to be giving her appetite any problems at the moment. She had baked potato, baked sweet potato and then steamed broccoli, carrot and cauliflower. We were having jackets & sausages so she had an organic sausage and the remaining Port Salut cheese for her protein. DH picked up a chicken today so we will roast that for dinner tomorrow and then I'll have plenty of meat for the rest of the week. Roast meat seems to go down the best, even in reheated form.

She's not off her milk, despite being poorly, and neither is she throwing it back up, so we are happy bunnies at the moment.

roly poly ever soooooooooooooooo slowly!

Naomi's appetite has dwindled the last couple of days; she has ANOTHER cold! And what she does eat takes FOREVER.

I'm still worried at the balance of what she eats. We had chicken pesto last night which she regarded as totally evil so we washed the sauce off and she ate it! Well the broccoli & carrot at least. Didn't seem to want the chicken.

Today was a bit more successful. We were at friends and they had cooked roast lamb, yum yum! So plenty of potato & carrot and I think some parsnip & celeriac also went down along with the meat. At one point she had a long strip of lamb that she sucked and sucked all the goodness out of and then waved around in her fist like a floppy flag!!! She tried the pear & mincemeat crumble offered for pudding but much preferred the standard banana!

Tea was soft cheese sandwiches with tomato pressed into the cheese. Naomi still has trouble with tomato in wedges or pieces so I'm resorting to this method. Daddy didn't cut the tomato fine enough but she managed a lot of it without too much trouble.

Our friends had another friend staying, a child psychologist, and she was very interested in Naomi wanting to feed herself at this age and managing her grip really quite successfully. She was also very pro baby signing so I scored lots of points there. And she said Luke (not quite 4) definitely had the language ability of a 5 year old. One chuffed mummy! The best bit was that she had some interesting input on grommets. She works with children whose language is delayed for all sorts of reasons, glue ear being one of them. Luke's development is obviously NOT an issue and makes me more inclined to see if I can find an alternative to the surgery that is bound to be proposed later this month. I've been reading how cranial osteopathy can really help so will explore that further.

I had a complete flip at DH last night about Naomi's eating. I think I'm under stress from it, her not sleeping through (although she did last night woohoo!) and the fact that she is coming off her medication soon. But he did, FINALLY, take me seriously and has made some notes about how we can begin to extend her range a little. He's always behind my decisions but I think he's realised how I'd like him to be in front of one or two of them.

fishy fishy fishy on a little dishy

but not exactly when the boat came in ! (rather more out of a box....)

We were out test driving cars this afternoon and needed something quick and easy on return. So we gave the kids fish fingers, home made baked chips & veg. We really don't use processed food very often, you can tell this by looking at how close the use by dates are on the stuff we DO have! but these are a good standby and a great way of seeing whether it is worth making our own.

Thankfully Naomi loved her dinner. She ate the chips with gusto but then she adores potato. The fish finger got licked for a while, almost as if she was assessing the texture. Between licks she passed it from hand to hand! So I make a note that if I do them myself they need enough coating to stand a bit of mauling. And then it disappeared as quickly as the chips. The last bit of batter was a problem but she just coughed a bit and back up it came.

Naomi has slept through the last two nights, yay, for the first time in ages, so something is going right at last. Bet I've jinxed it now ha ha.

daddy's turn

DH should have been on a half day today but his meeting over-ran, BIG BOOS!, and he was home only quarter of an hour early. So I made him do dinner ha ha.

We had sausage pasta. I have some organic quick cook sausages that I keep in for emergencies. They are mostly cooked before going into the packaging and are sold in the supermarket chiller. I then freeze them and they take 4-5 mins max under the grill. So he did Naomi one of those and we had ordinary sausages. I'm not against these for her but the organic ones are much better.

Pasta spirals were still a bit of a challenge unfortunately. Lots of other BLW babies without teeth seem to manage them but not Naomi. So she had more gnocchi and the usual carrot, broccoli and cauliflower. We're in for another smelly morning tomorrow yuck! Cauliflower just makes her stink. But its so good for her and she loves it.

DH is now off until Monday so I am determined to try and make ravioli and see if that works any better. Can only wait and see. And MUST get the raspberries out to defrost, forgot them again today.

We went to Toddler Group today and she wasn't happy that I was eating custard creams. But I really don't like biscuits or rusks for babies, not even the Organix ones. I've just got this mental block about them. When Luke was 1 or so I used to give him the Organix animal biscuits that are sweetened with apple juice but Naomi still seems a bit too young for all of that.

more experimenting

Another fairly good day in the Naomi-led ;-) household. Her appetite is definitely back which is fantastic although it is then challenging to get enough food into her. She's not back to sleeping through the night unfortunately. Just doesn't seem to have my sleep gene ha ha.

This evening I decided to cook Lancashire hotpot. Saw it on the telly the other day and thought yum yum. And red meat has iron in it, really important when you can't get your child to eat spinach! It was really lovely and Naomi didn't turn her nose up at it which was a relief. The lamb was so succulent and tender. But the big problem is that BLW takes sooooooooooo long. So some of the bits of lamb got cold and then they aren't half as palatable. She was still trying to eat them though, so I resorted to pushing them into bits of potato which made it much easier for her to handle.

Mango, however, is a different story. Definitely not impressed at lunchtime. Not sure if it was the taste or the texture or maybe she was just full of toast & dairylea. She had a WHOLE slice. But she did find room for a yogurt having refused the mango so maybe not. Will try again in a couple of days. I bought some frozen raspberries the other day so will get some of those out to defrost for her lunch tomorrow.

She's not into grapes either. We popped round to see a friend yesterday and her 18 month old was having some and really wanted to share them with Naomi. Another lack of teeth issue me thinks. Although, the way its going, it won't be for long.

BLW versus other principles

I don't think its any secret that I struggle with BLW. It goes against everything I thought I knew about feeding children and what worked so easily with my ds. So that's a big thing I have to get my head around to start with.

And then there's the issue that in order to give Naomi a wide variety of fruit & veg I come up against my other principles. We shop organically wherever possible and like to do this through a company that delivers to the door. Where they bring in produce from overseas they always ship rather than air freight to reduce the impact on the environment and they try, wherever possible, to send UK-sourced food.

I also believe in sourcing locally and in season and yet this conflicts hugely with BLW since there are only so many root vegetable dishes you can make in the winter! Yesterday I bought plums, apricots and mango in an attempt to vary Naomi's diet somewhat but these are from Argentina and New Zealand.

Not sure how I'm going to resolve this one. Might just have to accept that Naomi's needs have to win out for the moment and reign it in later.

gnocchi gnocchi ..... who's there!

I know, I know, lame joke! But another resounding success.

I bought these yesterday coz DH & I really like them and also I thought they would work better than pasta because they are potato based and so go really soft. And she loved them. They take 2-3 minutes to cook and you know they are done when they float to the top of the water, none of this 'is or isn't it al dente' business. Accompanied, as ever, by carrot, broccoli & cauliflower sticks. She also happily took the vegetable sauce my friend had made for her daughter who didn't want the spaghetti bolognaise the rest of us were having.

I also managed to chop tomato really finely and press it into the philly I spread on her lunchtime sandwich so I'm feeling a lot better about fruit & veg today. She still only ate a banana, refusing kiwi fruit and orange segments beforehand so its not that she was full. Maybe she distrusts green things but she will eat broccoli ...........

Ah well, for today I shall not worry.

hurray hurray a much much better day

A long time coming it feels like but Naomi had a great day today foodwise. I'm SO relieved!

Breakfast was Weetabix & apple puree. She's always starving at breakfast even though she had 5oz of milk in the night, so I can guarantee she'll make a good start to the day unless she's feeling totally beyond the pale.

For lunch I gave her leftovers from yesterday. Potato, chicken, broccoli, carrot. It just kept on going down and down and down. Accompanied by her enjoyment grunts! I gave her Petit Filous for pudding. I know this isn't BLW as I give it to her off a spoon but we did start weaning her with purees so there are certain limited things she'll accept this way still.

Spurred on by Saturday Kitchen from the weekend and other BLW experts, I decided to do her a 2-egg omlette for her tea. Luke & I were having jacket potatoes and so I cooked up some bacon and mushroom to go with them and added this mixture and some grated cheese to the egg & milk. It looked so yummy I was looking forward to eating most of it since I thought she was bound to reject it. That 'I know Mummy's slaved over this so I'll not eat a bit' mentality!

But no, I got just the soggy bits that she squashed on the highchair tray and couldn't pick up again. I'm astounded but hugely pleased. This means I can now get a large variety of things into her as long as I chop them up small enough not to impact against the egg. I need to experiment with the consistency a little so its a bit firmer for her to pick up. I think I was a bit scared of burning it. So some of it I had to put into her mouth. Again I know this is contrary to true BLW but I only did while I could see she was still reaching for the food and trying to pick it up. Her pincer grip is really coming along well so with more leftover carrot sticks she made an excellent meal and still demolished a small banana.

My daughter is back to having hollow legs whoopeeeeeee!