Banana Antics

I have a quick food related story for this Food Friday.



First let me show you the teeth Zoe currently has.

If it looks weird to you - that's because it is. It is totally weird and she is a vampire. She has 3 bottom teeth and 2 crazy top teeth.

So, I'm sitting at a La Leche League meeting talking about normal mom things.

Zoe is wandering around the room. Stealing toys from the younger babies, spilling yogurt melts all over the floor, filling her mouth with water and spitting it out, climbing on stacked tables.

I watch her do all of these things, intervening when needed, but mostly letting her run around.

I take my eyes off of her for 10 seconds and when I look back down, this is what I find.

The bottom quarter of an unpeeled banana is missing.

I found it in her mouth.

She bit right through the peel.

How did she even do that with her weird vampire snaggle teeth?

P52 Week 33 - Ice

Here is what we use our ice trays for instead of ice. Purees. Apple strawberry and cauliflower with cheese.

Red Pepper

This girl will not eat normal food that kids usually like. Here is macaroni and cheese according to Zoe.

Pick up a piece

Touch it to your lips

Lean all the way to the side with your arm stretched out

Drop to floor

Repeat until every piece is where it belongs

Times like this I wish we had a dog. But. BUT. Give this girl a raw red pepper.

Strange right?


 

aww Honey Honey

I had a guest post over on SuperNOVAmommy about letting the small stuff go as a parent. One of the things I listed was the fact my daughter had been fed honey in Greece and people completely flipped out over it.

The whole point of the post was to share some occasions that parenting didn't go exactly as planned. I'm 100% sure that if you have a child, this has happened to you. I'm also 100% sure that if you are a parent you've judged another parent on these occasions.

I'm not here to say judging is wrong because it's natural and it happens. I'm judging you right now. I probably think your shoes are ugly and that obviously makes you a horrible person.

When Zoe is attached to one of those baby leashes because she runs away from me and I can't chase her because I have MS - people are going to judge me so hard their brains explode.

If I were healthy, we wouldn't need one of those. But I rather have a living child than a pancake, so I will be happy with the other 99 decisions I made the past week and tolerate this one. People won't know all the thought that went into making this decision. They will only "know" that I am a horrible person and leashes are for dogs, and the baby store should have never sold me that baby.

But back to botulism! Oh, we weren't talking about botulism? We are now.

We're pretty conscientious, knowledgeable, educated parents. I would even say we are sciency - that's right.

We are a made up word.

Sciency.

My husband is a science teacher and I have a doctorate in a medical profession. We are of a scientific nature. We care about scientific things. We like to read scientific facts and research before we go freaking out over something. Fine, whatever. We are nerds. Which is why I have to talk about this botulism thing.

Some people are bothered that I let Zoe eat honey. For those of you who haven't recently had a baby, honey is now on the no fly list before the age of 1.  

FACT: There is a disease called botulism

FACT: It is caused by a spore-forming organism (Clostridium botulinum) that is commonly found in nature


FACT: Most of the cases of infant botulism are caused from inhaling microscopic dust particles that carry the spores

• Parents do not like it when they can't do anything to prevent a disease from happening, so we have to keep going.

FACT: Honey can contain Clostridium botulinum
 
FACT: You don't have to feed your baby honey

Parents win! All they hear is, "honey will kill your baby."

There is something you can do to protect your child from this incredibly obscure, rarely fatal disease. Honey became the bad guy because it is a food substance that Clostridium botulinum has been traced to.

And on a personal note...

FACT: Clostridium botulinum has been found in honey from the United States, Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Japan, and Central America

FACT: Greece is not on the above list

FACT: Greek honey is delicious

So yes. If you are caring for an infant, you should probably avoid feeding them raw honey because it has occasionally been linked to a disease that rarely has any long term complications. Let's be serious about things. Is this something you should be horribly afraid of? Absolutely not. Your baby is more likely to be attacked by a pack of wolves.

Ok, that last part I made up. But, all other info is from the CDC, NIH, and Infant Botulism Treatment and Prevention Program.

More fun facts for nerds!

• There are approximately 77 cases of infant botulism in the US a year

• They are most susceptible under 6 months of age

• Mean age of onset is 13 weeks, with a range from 1 to 63 weeks

• Honey has been the known cause of botulism in only 35 instances worldwide (the toxin of the spore in the infected individual matched the toxin in the ingested honey)

• Botulism rarely has any long-term side effects and death is an uncommon complication 

• Clostridium botulinum is heat-labile meaning it breaks down when heated to a certain temperature. Heating food with honey to a cooking temperature of 80°C/176°F for 10 minutes greatly decreases any risk.

 

Fork squared

The secret to letting your baby feel like she is in charge during feeding time?

2 utensils.

I mentioned Zoe's obsession with eating like a big person by using a real spoon, but now it has escalated. She likes to feed herself with a fork. Feed.Herself.

Here's the proof

She also got fed honey and ice cream in Greece and she's still alive.

Mom, that spoon is for BABIES

Here is what Zoe says now.

"See that mashed up food? I hate it. I hate it and I hate the tiny spoon you try to feed me with. That spoon is for babies. I hate the food, I hate the spoon, and I hate you."

I swear that's what babalaaaalalatatadaduhplhhhhhh means. I used Google translator.

The other day though. She let my mom feed her grits off a spoon.
So maybe she just doesn't like it when I feed her with a spoon.


Except the spoon looked like this.

Ok, maybe that is a slight exaggeration. But it was a big soup spoon. See, I thought she didn't like me feeding her with a spoon at all. We have discovered that, in actuality, it's baby spoons that she hates.

It is also baby food that she hates. Grits, chicken soup, tacos with black beans, fish with capers. She loves all of that. Anything that was made for a baby...she will throw it on the floor.

So, we feed her soup with a regular person spoon.

Yes, that is a giant piece of celery.

But, she loved it.

Food Friday

So this week's goals were fish (a HUGE hit) and coconut milk (Trader Joe's is still out so instead she got cauliflower). Zoe is preferring finger foods more and more, but she's not polite about it. I will be sitting there with a spoonful of delicious puree and she will be screaming in my face and reaching toward whatever finger food is in sight. Instead of feeding her with a spoon, I've resorted to dipping toast in the puree and then feeding her that. So far, it's working.

She is also taking longer and longer to feed. Which is because of behavior like...

Straight up lounging

Staring at the floor

Shirt eating

Also included are looking at the art, staring outside, and watching her feet kick. You would think these mean she is finished. This is completely false. She will yell your face off if you try to pack up the food while she is lounging/watching/staring.

Since she hasn't been loving puree world. We've upped the finger foods. Here is a typical breakfast now.

She has the prettiest food. Blueberries, gouda, egg yolk, and puffs.

On the agenda for next week...papaya and feta (probably not together)

Food Friday

You know what doesn't taste good?


Sweet potatoes and yogurt.

For real - it was terrible. Here is how our train of thought goes when mixing baby food flavors. 

See the problem there? 
Sometimes weird combinations work and sometimes not so much. This time it was a big mistake. 


I tried to get Zoe to be enthusiastic, but she wasn't having it. 


Some of our more successful combinations are:

Yogurt with any fruit (except for raspberries - there just wasn't enough sweet to balance the plain yogurt)
Spinach with apple and/or pear
Sweet potato with juice from an orange
Chicken with apple and spinach
Curry with butternut squash and pear
Nutmeg and clove with pears and apple


Here's that last combination mixed with banana and blueberry. Because really pears and apples seemed so boring. It was quite pretty.

As if that didn't have enough ingredients. I mixed it with yogurt. It was a hit.

Last week, I said I was going to introduce mango and coconut milk. Mango went well (I love it now too) but Trader Joe's was out of coconut milk so that will have to wait. Instead I gave her some cheese. She loved cheddar and mozzarella, but she was not a fan of kefalograviera (Greek sheep's milk cheese). Zoe better work on that before we head to Greece. 

Next week, fish and coconut milk (for reals) are on the list.

Food Friday

Typically, I do a post once a week on Tuesdays. I'm going to try my best to implement Food Friday you know just for fun and because, I like to cook and people ask me a lot about the food I make.

Right now the big thing in my life is baby food. I love making it more than real person food. That statement implies that babies are not real people. I halfway agree with that. So for my first Food Friday post (woah alliteration) I'm going to tell you about what Zoe has eaten.

Here is a list of foods she has tried - roughly in order

Fruits: apple, peach, pear, plum, banana, avocado, grapes, apricot, blueberry, strawberry, raspberry
Vegetables: sweet potato, carrot, butternut squash, spinach, acorn squash, broccoli, peas, leek, zucchini, potato
Animal Proteins: chicken, eggs, yogurt
Grains: brown rice, oats, quinoa
Spices: cinnamon, garlic, clove, nutmeg, allspice, cumin

I love giving her new things and I try to introduce new foods all the time. I was a super picky eater until pretty recently, so I'm hoping I can at least expose her to a lot of tastes now even if down the road she decides she is only eating food that is yellow. 

I have to say, I pretty much live by this book

It gives you guidelines on when to start foods and what the nutritional value is of them. Most of this info is on the interwebs, but I like having an actual book to sit down with and read over. I find that cook books help me make things I wasn't looking for. When I search something online - I get great recipes for exactly what I wanted to make. When I read cookbooks - I get great recipes for things I didn't know were options.

Two of the websites that help me in my baby food making venture are Wholesome Baby Food and Baby Food 101. These sites give great menus and tips for which foods to buy organic.

I use a combination of a mini food processor, a big Cuisinart, and an immersion blender. Usually whichever is clean and the least amount of work. Zoe really likes purees, but I also let her try "regular" food if she shows an interest, like my apple.

Yesterday morning I had a pear that was half rotting, a badly bruised apple, and a banana that was about to be used for bread. Instead I made her food with it. Ha, I basically just confessed that I feed my baby our garbage! Really, each only had small amounts that were unusable, but with all three combined it made breakfast for her for 3 days. I added some clove and ginger and it tasted magical!


Next up on the list is mango and coconut milk!