Brussels Sprouts

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first foods

The time has come for Miss Clara to try some solid food and so far, she's taken to it like a duck to water!  We are doing Baby Led Weaning again (highly recommended!), having had such incredible success with Andrew, and Clara is already proving to be just as amazing and adventurous an eater, which is so exciting to watch.

Her first meal was roasted parsnips and apple wedges.

Since then her repertoire has exploded: baked sweet potato, steamed asparagus, Cutie segments (those little orange/tangerine thingys), oatmeal, egg yolk, white potato, boiled carrots, roast chicken, beef brisket, hummus, orzo pasta with feta and tomatoes, banana, broccoli...  that's all I can remember.  It seems like there's nothing she won't try!

The End of July

Here's a photo diary of the last few weeks of July...

Andrew is starting to be a helper in the kitchen...

And he enjoys doing gymnastics on the couch...

Nothing like daddy's BBQ ribs!

Gpa Jerry made a slide for Travis when Travis was about 2 years old.  Since they were driving out for this visit, they brought it, in pieces, with them, and assembled it here.  Andrew is just really getting into slides so this was really fun.  There are also holes under the ear flaps that you can peek into or out of.

In brief

Crawling - for real, on the knees.  None of this Army Crawl stuff.
Pulling himself up without help on any piece of furniture or freestanding structure he can find.
Cruising the furniture to get where he wants to go (and usually to get into something he's not allowed to be into, like say, the power cords of the laptops).  This activity is new as of tonight.
Falling on his butt and not being phased by it at all.
Gestures grandly and speaks with purpose, as if he's giving a speech of tremendous import.
Eating solids like a football player.

Seems like he's about two seconds away from both walking and talking.

Greek-style scallops with tomatoes, leeks, and feta with sides of couscous and broccoli 

Do you want to share some?

Grand gestures

Peekaboo!

solids!

I am SO far behind on blogging.  ...But in the meantime, here's some fun with Baby Led Weaning!

Steak

He's had steak twice.  He goes to town on it.  This boy != vegetarian.

Pear, Avocado, and a bit of oatmeal

Avocado, you say?

A Weekend of Firsts, part I

Earlier this week, daddy was enjoying some asparagus. Andrew wanted to enjoy some too.  He didn't end up having too much of that or the banana we offered the next night, but he did enjoy some of a waffle this morning.

 On Saturday, we headed down to Colorado Springs to meet up with Uncle Tyler, who is on TDY in Pueblo.  We met at Colorado Mountain Brewery to watch the Falcons take on the Broncos at Boise State.  The game wasn't a W, but we kept it close enough that if our defense had been healthy (like having ANY starters at all on the D-line) we just might have been able to pull it out.  Uncle Tyler told us about his rigorous pilot training - sounds stressful and exciting.  We are very proud of you!

We then took the opportunity to earn some "hits" in the US Airway Grand Slam mileage earning promotion and crashed at the Comfort Inn in Colorado Springs.  We took advantage of the indoor pool and Andrew went swimming for the first time (in his zoogie cloth swim diaper).

At first he was not too sure at all...

...but in no time he was kick-kicking away.  He has a great flutter kick and a great froggie kick, and I could feel him pushing himself around against my chest.

We are right in the middle of the 26 week sleep regression (thank you Wonder Weeks for making us feel not crazy!), and so the past few nights have been really challenging.  His body wants to keep practicing rolling over, which he has been doing more and more - didn't think that was possible! - even stringing multiple rolls together to move around the room.  He's also been scooting, especially on his back, attempting to sit up by himself, and he looks like he could take off crawling any second.  To top all of that off, I think his first tooth is just about ready to break through (it has not broken the skin yet, but is bulging up in his gum).  So there are a lot of physical changes and developmental leaps going on for our guy right now... and his sleep is suffering for it.  Hopefully it'll only be another week or so and we'll be back into normalcy.

Andrew also supervised the carving of his first pumpkin this weekend, but that gets a post all to itself in Part II....

First Food: Broccoli

We are doing Baby Led Weaning - which is a fancy, capitalized way of saying that we're skipping purees and tasteless rice cereal, and going straight to actual people food.  The theory is that if he is externally able to handle, chew and get down real solid food, that will indicate that his insides are ready to accept it.  Seems biologically logical to me, not to mention easier for me.

I've been putting a bit on his high chair tray for a couple weeks now, but he usually pushes it aside or reaches around it in favor of playing with his (empty) bowl and spoon.  I also tried mama's milk popsicles - breastmilk ice cubes in a mesh feeding bag - but he's not even interested in noshing on those.

Tonight I threw a piece of soft, steamed broccoli on his tray.  He grabbed it and waved it around a while. He watched me intently while I ate a piece of broccoli myself and said, "Mmmmmm..."  The broccoli made it into his mouth.  Then he went to town sucking on it.  I don't think he actually ingested any of the solid parts of it, but that's not the point - the point is the new flavor and texture experience.

Afterwards, the broccoli tree ended up on the floor, and Andrew asked to nurse.  I felt like he was saying, "That was interesting and sort of fun, but I'd rather have your milk, mom."  Awwww....