New Food: Carrots

This weekend we introduced carrots... and if we thought the bananas were bad, the carrots were terrible! It was the first food I actually cooked for her. I just got some frozen carrots and boiled them, then mashed them up and threw in some breast milk to help make them mushier, and to maybe help her transition to it more... no dice. She hated it. Towards the end, I even separated the carrots from the milk and just fed her the milk (which had turned orange) and she grimaced even more. She seemed to say, "Yucky breast milk carrot juice!"

Here are some pictures of her first carrots.

"Oh no, not this game again!"

"What are you people feeding me?"

"Mommy, you gotta take some cooking lessons. This is no good."

Watching Daddy Eat

Mila loves watching Daddy eat! So cute!

New Food: Rice Cereal

For the last 3 days we fed Mila bananas just to get her used to it. It's interesting because although she doesn't eat very much (most of it comes right back out!) I've noticed it's affected her bowl movements. She used to go at least once a day, and ever since she's started eating solids, she didn't go for 2 days! I mentioned it to the doctor and he says as long as she doesn't seem to be in any discomfort or straining (which she isn't) then he's not concerned. Thankfully, she went at the end of the day on the second day.

For Mila's second new food, we decided to go with rice cereal. My go-to book for all things baby is Dr. William Sears' "The Baby Book" and he suggests the first foods for a 6 month old should be bananas, apples, rice cereal and pears. So we went with rice cereal. One one side, I thought it might be best to stick with real fruits and veggies first, but on the other hand rice cereal is easy to make (just add breast milk) when you don't have much time. Also, when I was a kid, my parents gave me baby cereal and I loved it. Actually, I still eat it, haha! My favorite is the Gerber Oatmeal with Bananas. So good. Especially mixed with Cheerios. Yum! I'd also like Mila to enjoy baby cereal like I did.  Or, should I say, like I do, haha! Rice cereal is kinda bland so she didn't make the terrible faces she did when she had bananas for the first time the other day.

Notice that we've perfected our workflow: she's not wearing any clothes and is in just a diaper and the bib is vinyl so just wipe and it's clean! Thanks for the bib, Gaby!!! Works great!! :)

Cindy's Birthday Lunch (& Bananas Part II)

Today we had Cindy's birthday lunch at our place. Cindy's birthday was actually on Monday, but since Mila and I were sick, we held off until today to get together. Mila and I are feeling muuuch better, by the way!

I cooked a fabulous lunch, if I do say so myself! I made some chicken with mushrooms (Cindy's fave!) and some Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes and some real mashed potatoes with fried plantains. YUM! Then we had some cupcakes from my new favorite cupcake place, Humpy's!

It was so great to get together to celebrate Cindy's birthday! Happy birthday!

We hung out and watched the finals of the World Cup and then it was time for Mila's lunch so we fed her some bananas again. Mila did not find any of this amusing at all… although we were all laughing at her adorable reactions to the food. So cute!

She seemed to take to it a bit better than last time...

Ok, so maybe not so good... LOL! I love that face!

Look at those teeth poking through!

Mila has banana alllllll over... can you see it almost in her eye? Geez! You'd think I'd clean her up?! Oh, and another tip I learned with this second feeding: feed baby in diaper and a bib. Clothes get very dirty!

Milestone: First Solids

Mila had solids for the first time today! She's been on all breast milk up until now, so this is a big change! For her first meal, we decided to go with bananas mixed with breast milk.

She didn't know what was coming!

Let's just say Mila didn't really care for it.... LOL!

"Ewwwwwww!" says Mila.

"Heeee-YA! Karate chop!!! No bananas for Mila!"

"Mommy, bananas yucky!"

"Et tu, Daddy? Et tu?"

"Whew! Glad that's over!"

So, as you can see, she totally hated bananas. It all ended up on her bib, on her chin, all over her face, in her hair, all over her arms and her table. We haven't gotten a high chair, so we fed her in the Bumbo over a plastic sheet so she wouldn't make a mess on the carpet. I got the plastic sheet at Babies R Us and it's made specifically for feeding time. Worked great! Now they need to make a tarp I can put on Mila so it doesn't get all over her! Something like the things they put on you when you go get a haircut, maybe? Haha! I had to give this girl a bath right after -- she made such a mess all over!

I love the cute little bowl that my mom got us. It's perfect, it hooks onto your finger so you don't spill it and the spoon is soft and flexible. Here's a tip though: don't wipe bananas off with anything made out of cloth! Bananas are sooo sticky and get embedded into everything! Arg! We started off using a vinyl bib, but she kept playing with it so we switched to cloth -- big mistake. That thing turned all brown. Yuck. Stick with plastic ones and the ones with the little scoop at the bottom, those are perfect!