Feeding Caleb: Beyond Cereal!

It's full speed ahead on solid foods with Caleb. We've branched out from rice cereal to oatmeal and brown rice cereal. The oatmeal seems to be his favorite - he makes "mmmmmmh" sounds while eating. We also decided to forge ahead with veggies at his five month birthday. This was based on his ability to mow through a bowl of cereal, he makes chomping motions with his mouth and he's thoroughly obsessed with watching us eat our grown up meals. I started him with veggies, based on on the basic knowledge that fruits are sweeter than veggies and I don't want him to expect that sugary taste for all food.

We tried peas first. He made screwed up faces and waved his hands like "get this stuff away from me!" but he swallows everything. No question he's his father's kid - my husband will eat anything even if he's not crazy about it. We tried squash next, which went over slightly better. I'm looking forward to the first food that he really enjoys- that's going to be a fun reaction! Both of the veggies were from the Gerber "stage one" line. Our pediatrician in Wisconsin suggested that I buy a couple baby foods so I could get familiar with the consistency, but after that he supported making our food at home.

Today, I became that mom. The one who bought organic veggies, steamed them, blended them and pushed them through a fine mesh strainer to make homemade baby food. Are we really surprised? No. Frankly, it's really easy. I'll give the caveat that I had the right tools: I own a steamer insert for one of my saucepots, a food processor and a strainer. I put baby food containers on my registry, so those are currently sanitizing in the dishwasher.

I looked at a couple recipes (found on pinterest, of course), one of which suggested cooking your vegetables with some water in a saucepot until soft. For me, the steaming route is much easier: I left the sweet potatoes steaming on the stove while I ate lunch for a good half hour. As long as you don't run out of water in your pot, you can't mess up steamed veggies that are going to be pureed anyway. I ran them through the food processor, then added water until an almost soupy consistency. Now the purees are waiting for the dishwasher to finish (didn't plan ahead on that bit). Before I go back to work in a couple week, I'm going to stock my (tiny) freezer for the weeks of pureed food ahead of us. I'm thinking green beans, apples, peaches and pears.

 Sweet Potatoes on top, Carrots on bottom. The organic sweet potatoes were white-yellow, not orange.

Speaking of Caleb and eating, he's teething! Last week I noticed some extra fussiness during the day and crying for his pacifier at night. On Thursday I let him chew on my finger and felt two very sharp bottom teeth. Now that those two teeth have cut through he's gone back to sleeping through the night. I know more teeth are on the way so I ordered a couple extra teething toys. Recently he's been loving his infantino Elephant - I usually keep it in the car seat for trips to the store, but right now I'm carrying it around the house for him. The legs are the perfect size for his mouth.

One of the best things about life with a baby is that there's something next and exciting every day. Our sweet little man is growing up so fast! 

Caleb, 5 Months

At the start of the month

The month leading up to June 16th was a whirlwind- on May 16th we were still living in Milwaukee, preparing for the move, but hadn't quite wrapped our heads around it. Now it's our third week in Nashville. We've settled into a routine that will be reworked when I go back to work in July.

Hanging out in our empty bedroom in Milwaukee. 

This month was FULL of milestones. At his 4 month check-up our (former *sob*) pediatrician gave the green light to start Caleb on cereal. It was off to the races! As I mentioned before, Caleb LOVES cereal. We've tried rice cereal and oatmeal, both to great success. Now we're up to cereal twice a day, as we move towards a regular meal schedule, with bottles to supplement.

"Just chilling. Hey guys, didn't there used to be furniture here?"

Our first week in Nashville Caleb really started to work on rolling over. We were excited, but I was less excited than Brian. See, rolling means we needed to break Caleb of the swaddle. And with Brian at work all day, I needed to break Caleb of the swaddle. I decided to go cold turkey, instead of messing around with one arm out at a time. It was painful week to begin with. We were living among boxes, the stove wasn't working and now I had a baby that wouldn't nap. And by wouldn't, I mean he couldn't nap. He had no idea why we were messing with his sleep routine. I called it "practice sleeping." He would only sleep for 45 minutes or so at a time, then wake up and cry because he was still exhausted but couldn't get back to sleep. Finally toward the end of the week he really started rolling over and that's when he figured out sleeping on his tummy. It the worst possible timing, but we didn't have a choice: you're not supposed to swaddle babies who can roll over.

Feet up, relaxing. 

Now he rolls over all the time and he mostly sleeps on his tummy. This is only problematic when he flips over and ends up with an arm between the slats.

His new trick: Falling asleep in the car after running errands. 

Every. Single. Time. 

Caleb is so much fun at 5 months old. He makes all kind of noises: coos, "wah," razzes, shrieks and giggles. He decided to talk through the entire sermon this past Sunday at a church we were visiting. Cue me chilling in the lobby with him. Thankfully the church members were incredibly sweet about it.

Yum! Cereal! 

Caleb is still a happy, sociable baby. He charms friends and strangers and we just love him to pieces.

Some pictures from his 5 month "photo shoot." (Aka, we had a couple quiet minutes and a blanket. Which he's too big for. The dog is Kevin Bacon, a gift and cousin of my best friend's (real) dog, Francis Bacon.)

Transitioning

We've been here in Tennessee for just over a week now. The transition has definitely been hard - I was really upbeat about the whole move right until I pulled up to our new apartment. We rented it sight unseen, and I figured it couldn't be that bad...and it's not, but leaving our beautiful, charming apartment with its huge kitchen and basement, and pulling up to something not nearly as nice almost sent me over the edge. The trip we had just made, almost 1000 miles south, hit me all at once and I informed Brian that we would be accelerating our house buying plans significantly. An nonworking kitchen stove gave me fits for a few days.

Exhausted Dad, trying to make Caleb nap with him

On top of apartment woes, I immediately launched into a hunt for a daycare for Caleb and the first place I saw made me want to run far, far away. The second place was nice, but didn't have space for at least a year. (Thanks for not mentioning that on the phone...) I came home to my parents, thankfully here for the week, and burst into tears, pleading with my mom to stay and take care of Caleb.

But slowly things are coming together. We've got our pictures up on the wall. The bedrooms are significantly bigger and having 2.5 baths is incredible. The closets are walk-ins and central A/C is such a luxury. I got offered a great job with one of the United Methodist Church governing agencies. I did eventually find a wonderful daycare for Caleb - it's a K-12 Christian private school with an Early Childhood Learning Center that takes babies starting at 6 weeks old. The director of the ECLC was the only person who's made me feel at home here. The school has a beautiful campus and there's lots of outdoor playtime for the kids. It's 10 minutes from our apartment and I couldn't be more thrilled.

The post-thunderstorm light hitting a rock face, viewed from our balcony.

Tennessee requires more hair product than I'm used to and I was called "ma'am" three times in the grocery store yesterday. It's hillier than I thought middle Tennessee would be and the rolling hills are covered in green. The beauty of this part of the country can take your breath away.

I think we're going to like it here.