Feeding Excitement - Baby Food Making

I'm so excited! Chloe's actually still sitting next to me in her high chair playing with cracker crumbs as I type. As I mentioned before, Chloe does not like any type of texture in her food. We've experienced vomit at the dinner table a few times. 1 - mashed avocado experiment gone horribly awry; 2 - first homemade chicken experience was a grainy nightmare; 3 - "melt-in-your-mouth" puffs that really don't m-i-y-m; 4 - I actually don't remember the 4th but I'm certain there was a 4th.

We had a visit from the Occupational Therapist on Thursday and she suggested that Chloe's vision issues might be partly to blame for her texture issues. She noted that we all look at our food to see what we're about to put in our mouth and that maybe Chloe just can't see the chunks in her food. She's not expecting them so they surprise attack her gag reflex when they hit her mouth. She also said that Chloe may need practice moving food from side to side with her tongue. I'm skeptical because I know of two other babies with similar issues and neither has vision issues but I'll never throw out an educated suggestion.

We're taking a two-pronged approach to the issue. First, I'm starting off meals with a wash cloth routine. I get a clean and rough-ish wash cloth and rub it up her arm and neck and toward her mouth. Then I rub it on her lips and on the inside of her cheek giving her a chance to reflexively attack it with her tongue. This sort of warms up her mouth for what's to come. Then I crumbled up some saltine crackers and put a bunch on the tray for her to play with. She seemed to enjoy moving them around with her fingers. This is another way to prepare her for what's about to hit her mouth. I then sprinkled a few cracker crumbs on top of a spoonfull of pureed baby food and into the mouth it went. No reaction! We continued this over and over and I even started sprinkling bigger crumbs. At one point she was even doing a chewing motion when a fairly large chunk of cracker went in. And not a single gag! This is terribly exciting! We mixed smooth and crunchy! I can't wait to try again :-D I'm using saltines for savory foods and will try graham crackers for sweeter foods.


And speaking of baby food. I just started making it about three weeks ago and am crazy about it! Thank you to my anonymous friend who suggested lentils. I LOVE giving Chloe lentils. They're helping to keep her regular, too! This is always a concern with Chloe. She seems to have small pipes, if you know what I mean. If you have ever considered making your own baby food I strongly recommend it. I don't know for sure if it's cheaper but I wouldn't be surprised. Plus, you don't even need to buy a fancy baby food maker. I just cook in the oven or stovetop, puree in the blender, and freeze in these handy dandy trays ( http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4312595 ). The next day I pop them out (very easy to do with these trays) and into a labeled Ziploc and then just use the cubes as I need them. The quality of the food is amazing. Plus, I'm able to buy many more organic foods than stores sell in baby food jars. Some of our favorites are:

- lentils mixed with blueberry juice (the juice is leftover and frozen from when I made blueberry puree)
- lentils mixed with canteloupe
- blueberries (I also mix into yogurt)
- nectarines
- plums
- spinach mixed with blueberries
- peas
- peaches
- green beans


I've also made chicken and that wasn't a huge hit but I've been able to successfully hide it in peaches and nectarines. I also heard babies love pears so I bought a bunch of pears yesterday.

I'm using wholesomebabyfood.com as a guide but have also received a couple of recommendations for Annabel Karmel.

Visit from Peggy

We moved to Ohio in January of 09 - going on two years now. The only reason we decided to move to Ohio was because Dave got a great job that would afford us the luxury of me staying home. We were living in Denver and I loved my job but commuted almost an hour each way to work. I'd drop Solana off by 7am and pick her up at 5:30. 10+ hours in daycare and only a couple of hours a day at home. That wasn't enough for me. Anyway, we moved to Ohio with zero ties. Dave is from San Francisco and I'm from Houston.

So far, we've had two visitors from Texas who were visiting the Dayton area for completely different reasons but decided to swing by for a visit. I find that absolutely amazing and wonderful! First was my cousin in July and last week we had a visit from one of my mom's Houston friends, Peggy. I actually went to HS with Peggy's daughter, Jennifer, and we went to the same church, too. It was great to see a face from home. And Solana and Chloe made out with some great gifts :-) We're actually going to design Solana's Halloween costume around one of her gifts. Pictures to come... Thanks Peggy! It was great visiting with you, your mom and sister!!

(These fuzzy pictures were taken with my phone.)

We had so much fun chatting that their "quick stop to say 'hi' on the way to the mall" magically turned into an hour visit! We had 10 minutes to make Solana lunch, eat, and get out the door for the bus. Somehow, (using the miracle of PB&J) we made it - LOL!

Chloe's New Hairdo

She likes it!

Eye Exam Under Anesthesia

I'm sitting in the hospital waiting for Chloe to come out of recovery. She just had an EUA (Examination Under Anesthesia). The doctor just came to speak to me. Chloe will need another cataract surgery. He said this is common in children because their bodies heal so aggressively. He said he doesn't use the term "scar tissue" but my understanding is that it's sort of a combination of scar tissue/cataract regrowth that is currently clouding her vision and needs to be removed via vatrectomy (looks like we didn't dodge the vetrectomy bullet after all). In addition, her right eye (the good eye) is near-sighted. I'm feeling suddenly very bummed. This is not the news I expected to hear today. Once again my optimism backfires and has momentarily thrown me into despair. Or maybe it's my spoiled-ness. I hate it when I don't get what I want.

Later...
Everything seems fine when she comes out of recovery. My spirits are immediately lifted when I see my little Princess hugging her pony pacie and wearing her hospital gown. She's a sight to behold. She'll be fine and this will just be another notch on her very notch-peppered (and very small) belt. I think we're just beginning to realize her vision impairment. We've been in a wait-and-see pattern for quite a long time now. We're slowly but surely getting to a place where we'll have an idea of her vision. I dared to ask the doctor if she'd need correction on her right eye and he said, "yes, but not for now. We'll just use her near-sightedness as another way to force her left eye to work harder." I didn't ask for any more detail. Who knows what the future has to hold for Chloe? One step at a time.

He Knows Me Too Well

As we sat down to dinner last night I commented to Dave, "Babe. I have gained X pounds in the last two weeks since I quit pumping! Can you believe it? X pounds!!"

Dave under his breath, "I'm going to suffer for this, aren't I?"

Pretending I didn't hear him, "WE are going on a strict diet/exercise regiment starting now."

Dave, "Great."

Feeding Issues

Chloe had her 1-year vaccinations a couple of weeks ago. Last weekend she had a little reaction to the MMR vaccine. It's completely normal and wasn't a big deal - few red bumps and low fever. I'd much rather her have that than measles, mumps, or rubella, right? But she wasn't eating really well for a few days so I went ahead and took her to the doctor just in case. Chloe's not much of an eater to begin with so I always get nervous when she eats even less than normal. The ped. said she's fine and confirmed the MMR reaction.


I was anxious to get Chloe's weight at the doctor's office. She'd just been weighed a week prior but after three days of somewhat pathetic feeding I was curious if she'd lost weight. Surprisingly, she went from 15lb 1oz to 15lb 8oz! Wow! That was pretty impressive! Then we came home and Chloe took a huge dump in her diaper. I opened up the diaper, "Um, yeah. There's at least 7oz in there...." Stinker... (Note: I actually considered weighing her diaper a la NICU style but we only have one small scale and it's my kitchen scale. Cookoo! Cookoo! I chose not, though.)

Her formula intake seems to have settled around 18-20oz per day. Seems pretty pathetic to me but she just refuses to take any more. She always finishes her purees, though. I called the NICU nutritionist (I'm so thankful to still have a relationship with her!) and she said most babies naturally decrease their formula intake at around a year old and as long as Chloe's above the minimum of 13oz per day and she's gaining weight we're ok. I'm going to try adding a little bit of cow's milk to Chloe's bottles to see if that makes them more appealing and add a third baby food meal per day.

I suspect Chloe has some texture issues we need to work through. She kind of gags if the puree isn't runny enough. I recently made her some chicken puree (my first attempt at making baby food) and it was pretty good but still had a slight grainy texture to it. I mixed it with apples one day, peas the next, and sweet potato on the third day. She ate it all but tried to touch her tongue to her chin with every bite. I'm surprised she opened for each new bite. We'll keep working on it. The pediatrician said to work on different textures for about 3 months or so and call her if I can't get Chloe to easily eat more than soupy baby food. I really really don't want a referral to the Feeding Therapist so we'll work on it.

Any suggestions on how to work on texture issues would be greatly appreciated! I'm trying to enter the world of baby food making and recently bookmarked wholesomebabyfood.com. Wish me luck!

Floor Time is Exhausting

For some reason, our floor has turned into a magical sleeping potion for Chloe. I often set her on her blanket with some toys when I need to do something quick. Today I set her down to fix Solana's hair and found her like this after one minute. She's making a habit of it, too. I set her down later to play as I folded clothes next to her and she did it again! Silly goose.