A First Food

The Little Peanut turned 6 months old recently and it was time to introduce solid foods! How fun!  Actually he was ready for solids a few weeks before turning 6 months, so we introduced them at about 5 1/2 months. After perusing Wholesomebabyfood.com (great resource by the way) and lots of other reading about first baby foods, I decided that avocado was a great place to start.  It’s a real whole food; actually it’s a perfect food!  It’s jam packed with tons of nutrients and healthy fats – everything a baby needs. Nothing against baby cereals because he eats that now too, but most of them have been stripped of their nutritional profile (just like instant oatmeals) and then have been fortified after processing so I decided that I wanted his first solid food to be unprocessed. 

There is very little work to preparing an avocado for a baby – just cut open, scoop out the flesh, mash with a fork (or put it in a food processor) and then thin it out with breast milk or formula to a consistency your baby is comfortable with and being his first solid, I made it more on the runny side.

I was so excited for this day to come. I love watching him experience new things :-)

It was finally time and here he is all skeptical like he knew something was “up:”

He opened his mouth like a little birdie but you could tell he was still very cautious about this new experience:

“Like seriously Mom, what IS this new sensation in my mouth?”

And since he’s all “grabby graberson” he decided from the get go that he was going to have a hand in this feeding process of course:

“Mom why not just let me at the whole bowl?!”

“Okay what’s next?!”

He ate it alllll up and I think it’s safe to say he was very excited about his new experience!

Since then we’ve added banana to it to make “bananacado” and he LOVES it! 

I’ve also gotten up to my elbows in making my own baby food and have an upcoming post about making that and a review of some pre-packaged (frozen) organic baby food from Baby Gourmet so stay tuned!

+/- 6 Months

A lot can happen in 6 months. And a lot can NOT happen in six months.  You can gain 60 lbs and you can LOSE 60 lbs. It's all possible or not possible, depending on how you choose to live those 6 months.  The last 6 months of my pregnancy left me with more weight to lose than I EVER wanted to EVER see again. But there's no point in living in the past.  I've done it before and I can do it again.  The following 6 months taught me how to be a Mom and nothing but a Mom.  Now it's time to decide how I want to live the next 6 months. I'm aiming for somewhere between being a Mom devoted 100% to her baby as well as to herself too.

I was reading one of Marie's posts where she talks about a photo of her in her little black dress and how while she couldn't picture herself a certain way before losing the weight (as a reward or motivational technique), but once she put the dress on after the fact, it became a new defining moment of who she had become.  I identified with her 100%.  I had no picture or anything "visual" to use to help me keep pushing to lose the weight, but took it a week at a time without really saying too much for fear of "jinxing" it (or as Marie talks about, for fear of "failure"), but once I got there, there were plenty of opportunities for photos of me in my new physique and I was as happy as I could ever be. I finally felt like "myself" without even knowing I didn't feel that way before.  I was also always a happy girl before this, and never considered myself without confidence in who I was (something which I find ironic because I'm now starting to feel that way (insecure) since I've re-gained weight during my pregnancy), but now I have a knew idea of who "me" truly is!

This time around I have a few favourite pictures to motivate me.  Pictures of ME happy, healthy and even a bit "athletic" looking or at least to my own personal standards.  I never wanted to be skinny - ever. I only wanted to feel healthy and happy at a weight I felt I could sustain without depriving myself of the joys of delicious foods. Deprivation is your worst enemy.

I already posted a few photos of me the day I ran my first 5k which also just happened to be the first day that I met a great friend in person for the first time. I am thankful for that day for that reason all in itself :-)

The other photo of me that comes to mind is a photo I never thought I would ever have and like of myself in a million years.  It's a photo of my in a swim suit of all things! We're in Cuba, I'm having the time of my life and we're at a beach that I will remember forever - aqua blue waters and white sand as far as the eye could see, hardly any people mucking it up and waves so fun and I experienced boogie boarding for the first time.  Forever etched in my memory and I'm so glad I have this picture to remind me of it.  I looked happy and I was at a weight that I feel suited me well which was in the 170's somewhere:

And of course I love this one because it's so funny. Taken totally blind with a waterproof camera after my friend's wedding in the pool (I think this is my blogger profile pic still actually!):

The only difference between that girl and the girl I see 6 months from now is that in 6 months from now, I see her in the shining sun of this summer swinging her little boy in the air and smiling in a brand new photo.

For now, I’ll share with you these adorable shots of my little Peanut in all of his smiling gummy grin glory taken about a month ago when he was about 5 months:

*Note: The representations made on the child’s bib do not reflect the opinions of the child’s mother (or grandfather) except for possibly the spit up on said bib :-D

More pictures of the Peanut to come in another post involving his first food :-) 

 

The husband and I have decided to procure ourselves a good quality treadmill.  My little Peanut is starting to show signs of consolidating a morning nap albeit not every day and you never know when, but there's promise of having an opportunity to light it up in the basement during that time.  I plan to get these pictures printed and a few others and create a little motivation bulletin board with my Bluenose medals and race bibs and hang it on the wall next to it.  The beauty about having that kind of motivation in the corner of your eye every day is that it's attainable.  That's me!