Follow up to the JUST EAT IT post

After my recent post and talking to several people about my frustration with my picky eater, I got a lot of really good suggestions. Here are the conclusions I've come to.

1. I waited too long to introduce table food to him. Too late to fix now, but I will learn from my mistake. My next baby will not eat Gerber baby food. I plan on making all her food so she doesn't get too used to the smooth texture of Gerber purees.

2. When he doesn't like a food, I need to try it again at least 3 more times before moving on to the next one, to give him a chance to get used to the texture. So spaghetti O's it is for the next 3 days!

3. I need to let him start trying to feed himself. This one is a hard one for me because I don't like the mess he makes, but after talking with a few nurses last night at work they convinced me that I need to let him play with his food and start trying to feed himself, even if he does make a mess.

4. I need to cut way back on the bottles. If he fills up on milk or rather formula, he isn't going to be as motivated to eat food.

5. As for not liking regular milk, I am going to try a few things; soy milk, and whole milk blended with banana like a smoothie.

Today at lunch I decided to give the self feeding thing a try. I stripped his shirt off and put him in his highchair with the food (in a bowl that suctions to the tray so he can't throw it) and let him have at it. He made quite a mess as I suspected, but I was quite surprised that he actually did seem to eat better this way. I still hate the mess, he had to go straight into the tub afterwards, but I think he will make some progress if I let him feed himself. Maybe just one meal a day for now though, he can't be taking 3 baths a day.

I wonder if he will be left handed or right handed. He held the spoon in his left hand, but he put the food in his mouth with his right hand.

Christmas Pictures

Anthony made out like a bandit with the Christmas gifts. The most annoying part was that everyone seemed to pick out better gifts for him than I did. He hardly plays with the ones I got him, he's too busy playing with the more fun gifts everyone else got him.


He really seems to like cousin Kristen's cat too. Luckily the cat is a good sport about it.

Tony was so happy, he didn't care if he had gifts or not.

I made a slide show with more pictures, but can't seem to get it onto the blog, but if you want to see more, you can go HERE to see it.

Today we were walking downtown past this old brick building and I thought it would make a good spot to try out my new Nikon D90 I got for Christmas. It was nice that the weather was warm enough to not need a coat. After weeks of snow and ice it got up to 61 degrees today. It almost felt like Spring.

While they aren't as good as professional pictures, I still really like them. My goal is to learn how to take pictures that are as good as professional ones, and then I will save myself a ton of money.

Just eat it, You'll like it I promise

I think I've said that more times than I can count. Meal time is such a drag at my house, at least when it comes to Anthony's mealtime. He is such a picky eater. He is bored of baby food yet he doesn't seem to be interested in regular table food. Whenever I feed him something if he doesn't like it he just spits it out. Drives me crazy. He should be off formula by now and on to whole milk, but of course he doesn't like it. Yes I've tried mixing it and he cannot be fooled. If there is milk in it he wont touch it. I have tried numerous things and so far have not found much he likes. This is concerning to me because he was only in the 10th percentile for weight at his 1 year check up, weighing 19 pounds 14 ounces.

Here is a very short list of what he will eat.
Pancakes with butter and maple syrup
yogurt
peanut butter and jelly sandwich (sometimes)
bananas
peaches
watermelon
applesauce
rice pudding
jello

Here is the longer list of the things I've tried that he spits out.
vegetable risotto (from baby food recipe book)
macaroni and cheese
grilled cheese
avocado
squash
sweet potato
mashed potatoes
crackers
cheese chunks
milk
pasta noodles
pizza
bread cubes
rice
spaghetti O's
cheese ravioli
scrambled eggs
papaya
oatmeal (baby oatmeal or regular instant oatmeal)
cottage cheese
broccoli cheese soup
tofu

So could somebody please tell me what babies like to eat, cause I can't seem to figure it out.
Do I just give him the few things he will eat over and over? Surely it can't be that nutritious to just eat yogurt, pancakes, fruit and pbj's day after day.
Any suggestions for getting him off the formula and onto milk? My friend suggested adding Ovaltine to flavor it, but I haven't tried that yet. I plan on picking some up next time I'm out shopping.

Pictures from Jamaica

Okay, we made it home. I didn't have time to do much more than put some pictures of the trip on here, but here are a few. I may edit it tonight at work if I have the time, so check back for updates.

Playing in the sand Swinging in the hammock with daddy

Playing inside

Who needs the beach when you have a bucket of water?

Our last day

Our cook/housekeeper Cathy

Our driver, Roy

A few pictures at Sunset

Playing in the ocean

A cardboard box is as good a toy as any

Seriously, he loved this bucket, it provided hours of entertainment.

Waiting for daddy to take him in the ocean

Pool fun

This girl gave me a pedicure at the villa, and entertained Tony at the same time.

Lounging in the hammock

One of the few times he slept on this trip

More Jamaica

Just a quick update. We did finally take Tony into the ocean and he LOVES it. Tries to drink the water. We even took him on the big water trampoline this am at Margaritaville next door. He thought that was pretty fun. Although it was quite tricky getting him off that big thing when we were ready to go back, we didn't really think that one through very well. Some other guests here where we are staying bought him a baby raft which is pretty handy to have. He is content just floating around in it.
Just so you don't all get too jealous of us, it isn't all roses here. Our little mellow baby isn't so mellow at night time. His crib is in our room and he has decided that he wants to sleep in the bed with us at night. I have no problem with this, I'd rather let him do that than listen to him cry. A fake cry I might add. I say fake because there is not a tear in his eyes and he will carry on forever it seems until we give in and pick him up, and then he is all smiles instantly. After 3 nights of letting him sleep with us, Todd decided enough of that, it isn't the most peaceful sleep with a one year old between you who flops around and easily wakes and wants to play in the middle of the night. Last night he insisted when Anthony woke up at 3 am that he was not getting in the bed with us, no matter how long he cried. So he cried and he cried, and finally we had to get up and go sit in the living room because we didn't want to listen to it anymore. We made toast and watched TV til 4:30 am and he was still going strong with the fake cry. So we finally gave in and picked him up and put him in bed with us and he was asleep within 3 minutes. So I guess Anthony inherited his dad's stubbornness, and he can hold out longer and cry longer than we can listen to. So in the end the baby wins. We will see what happens tonight.
Oh and Rach, we do have Cathy cooking for us again, and she made the best pumpkin soup the other day. It was so good. And remember that bucket of water Ben played with last time? they set one up for Tony outside our villa and he loves to play in it. It reminds me of the time when we were here together last. And one more bonus, Margaritaville has mixed up the music selection a bit, it's not all Jimmy Buffet all day, they even throw in some Christmas music now and again which is rather pleasant.

Jamaica - No Problem

We arrived safely yesterday in Jamaica. The flight was uneventful despite the fact that Anthony has an ear infection and only got about 4 hours sleep the night before. We were expecting the worst, but Anthony was perfect. There was only about 25 people on the plane, so we were able to move around and be comfortable.
The weather here is great and the set up is great being so close to the beach. Although our little beach villa is just a few feet short of the baby monitor range. Oh well. Todd and I take turns while he naps going to the beach, and we have a lawn chair right outside the villa for the one staying to watch Anthony.
There must be something in the air here, because Anthony is so mellowed out. They have these little hammock huts on the beach and Anthony loves it. He will just cuddle up with me and sway for however long I want (something he would not normally do). It's so peaceful and relaxing. Last night while we were watching TV he let me rock him to sleep (again, something he wouldn't normally do).
We haven't tried taking him in the ocean yet, I'm afraid he wont like the salt. He really doesn't even like the sand. He doesn't want to touch it at all. He does however love the pool. He spent quite a bit of time in it this afternoon. They have a kiddie pool and an adult pool, but he seems much more content being played with and held by daddy in the big pool.
Okay, well I need to keep this short, internet fees are $0.28/minute, but I just wanted to let you all know that everything is going great, I will tell more and post pictures when we get back.

Anthony's 1st Birthday Party

I woke up early this morning to get to the store and get the last minute things I needed for the big party today. Everyone in the house was still asleep, but I left the camera hanging on Tony's bedroom door with instructions for Todd to get a picture of the birthday boy first thing when he woke up. He did as I asked, in fact there were about 20 pictures on the camera, but sadly only two was worth keeping.

Here's the birthday boy. He has no idea what a big day is ahead of him.

The party was great. We had lots of people to share in this big day. While Anthony turning one was a huge deal to Todd and I, we weren't sure how big of a deal it would be to everyone else. Apparently he has a lot of people who love him and wanted to be here for the celebration, we had close to 40 people in our house for the party. There wasn't even enough seats for everyone to sit, but no one seemed to mind.

My sister Natalie was in charge of taking pictures for me, but I didn't get them from her before she left, so I am not able to post but the few pictures I took on my camera.

His Grandma got him this really cool wagon. It's a two seater, so he can share it with his little sister next year.

By the time everyone had arrived, Tony started to get a little cranky. I'm not sure if it was because he was overwhelmed by all the people, or if it was because it was somewhat close to his naptime. Either way, we decided to do the cake and sing Happy Birthday early on in the party just in case his good mood didn't last long.

Here he is waiting for his cake. After we sang to him, we were all hoping he would dig in to his own little mini cake, but he just wasn't that interested in it, at first anyway. Eventually, he dug in and had some fun with it.
He made quite the mess by the time he was done. It was so cute though, and that is after all what your supposed to do on your first birthday right?Then we moved on to the presents, he had a rather large pile waiting for him. He got lots of cute little outfits, and tons of new toys to play with. The good news is, I don't have to get him much for Christmas, he should be all set with new toys for quite a while now. I think I have enough now to have a play room on all three floors of our house.
After I helped him open all his gifts I took him upstairs for a nap. He fell fast asleep without any fussing and slept for 2 hours. He was plum tuckered out.

All in all it was a great birthday party, and one we will for sure never forget. Thanks to everyone who came to share in this special day.

Once I get the rest of the pictures from Natalie I will post some more. There were lots of cute ones I'm sure.

Too busy to blog

I'm such a blog slacker lately, I have lots of good ideas of things to write about but I have been so busy lately. So here is the short short version of some of the posts I wanted to write but never did.
We finally got our basement remodelled after the flood. The paint on the walls was barely dry when our Thanksgiving company arrived. The decorating is not complete yet, as it never really was before the flood, but I am determined to get it all comfy cozy and cutely decorated just as soon as the holidays are over. I have lots of good ideas for stuff to do down there.
Thanksgiving was great, we had dinner at my sisters with about 25 family members, it was great times and great food. My step-dad Bob is a pie maker extraordinaire and we had the best homemade pies (even the crust is made from scratch) all weekend long, I think he made 3 apple, 3 pumpkin, 1 pecan, 1 chocolate pecan, 1 cherry, and 2 lemon merange. The food was so good too, and with so many people there we were able to divy out the menu so no one person had to make very much. It was very nice and the food was so good, we had all the vegetarian thanksgiving recipes my mom always makes. I got off easy and only had to make mashed potatoes. I almost had to make a turkey, but thankfully my mom's cousin who was staying with us, is not a vegetarian and he offered to make it for me. Probably a good thing, as I'm sure, the novice meat cooker that I am, I would have messed it up somehow.

Here is picture of Tony with my mom.
Friday morning I woke up at 4am to do the black Friday shopping tradition. I found a few things, but I was a bit unprepared to Christmas shop, I didn't have a list with me of who I needed to buy for, and hadn't thought much about what to get them yet. I was home by 8 am, just in time for Tony to wake up. Luckily Todd watched him so I could nap. I had a lot more success Christmas shopping on Cyber Monday, I got tons of good deals, and almost everyone had free shipping. I think next year I will just sleep in on Black Friday, and wait for Cyber Monday when I can shop at my kitchen table in my pj's with a cup of coffee. My list is almost complete now. Just a few more things and I will be done. I am hoping to get it done before next Tues when we leave for vacation.
Anthony's birthday is coming up this Sunday, I can't believe he will be a year already. It went by so fast, and he is such a fun little baby. Saturday at church they celebrated his birthday a week early, since we will be out of town the week after his birthday. They have a little table in the center of the room and a fake cake with a candle on it, they sing to him and let him blow out the candle. When they were singing to him he was clapping his hands and smiling, it was so cute. I got a little emotional and my eyes started to water, I tried really hard not to cry though, how embarrassing in front of all those other mommies. I don't really know why either, I honestly couldn't identify my emotions at the time, was I happy or sad that he was turning 1? It probably doesn't help that I am pregnant. Anyway, we are having a little birthday party for him at home this Sunday, I will be sure to make time to blog about that.

Here he is at Sabbath School.Singing Happy Birthday.
Tuesday we leave for vacation to Jamaica. I can't wait for some warm weather and sunshine. We will be staying in a little villa on the beach in Negril. We don't plan on doing much of anything but relaxing and hanging out at the beach and enjoying the warm weather. I think Anthony is old enough now that he will enjoy playing in the sand.
The other day we had some snow, the roads were a bit icy, so when Todd called me at work to tell me he had a little accident with the truck I was not terribly surprised. But come to find out, the icy roads had nothing to do with it at all. he was picking up his cousin and while he was waiting for him he tried to adjust the seat and his foot slipped off of the brake and he rolled right into their garage door. The truck was fine, but the garage door was not. Oops! Well, I see it as no harm done, no one was hurt and it's easy enough to buy a new garage door. However I can't help but think how Todd would have reacted had I been the one to run into someones garage door. About 5 years ago my sister hit his parked car in her driveway while I was borrowing it. Rachael and I still hear about it from him. To this day I am not allowed to park in her driveway, I have to park on the street. So I am putting this out here, just for the record, that men do stupid stuff too, and should I ever do something stupid in the future, I will expect the same nonjudgmental attitude that I have given him.

Okay, that's it for now, I really need to get some stuff done around the house. So much to do and Tony's naps are very short these days because he has a cold and usually wakes up from a stuffed nose or coughing. I must make the most of the quiet time while I have it.

Into Everything

Okay, so I think I said before that my house is baby proof for the most part. Well turns out that for the most part it's NOT that baby proof at all. How naive of me to think that putting a few picture frames and nick-knacks out of his reach and putting up a few baby gates would suffice. Guess where he wanted to play and explore yesterday? And there was no redirecting him to more appropriate things to play with. He was insistent that this is where he wanted to be.


I guess it's time for some more baby proofing. I really don't want to have to screw those plastic latches on all my cupboards and drawers, so if any moms out there that have any better ideas please let me know. In the mean time, I have found a new higher place to keep my cleaning supplies.

big belly and a clean baby

I said I wasn't going to do this, but I feel like I might regret it later if I don't. So I had Francie take a picture of my belly to see what 20 weeks looks like the second time around. After she took the pictures, I didn't think think they were too bad, I mean after all I am 5 months pregnant, and I think I am about the same as far as weight gain compared to last time. Then I found my 20 week pictures from my pregnancy with Anthony and WOW what a difference.

So here I am in my first pregnancy at 20 weeks. I'm practically sticking my stomach out to make myself look pregnant.

And here I am this time around. See what I mean?
The front view isn't as bad, so I just have to try to avoid letting people look at me from the side view.

And here are some cute pictures of Tony I took tonight after his bath.

He loves the bath so much, I probably let him stay in a little too long. Look at his little feet, they are all water-logged.

Here he is all clean smelling. Don't you just love the smell of a clean baby?

And here he is all ready for bed. He would probably argue that statement if only he could talk. Our bedtime ritual is getting to be a bit difficult lately. He wants to stay up til 9 every night and I'm sorry but he needs to go to bed earlier or he and I both get grumpy. (cause I need some me time in the evenings)
In case anyone is wondering, my 2 days out of town wasn't a vacation it was work related. But I still managed to get some good sleep and do some shopping and dining without a baby in tow, which was really nice. Tony didn't seem to miss either Todd or me, he really is quite content with his Grandma. In fact he did so well I decided Todd and I should go to Chicago for a couple days for our anniversary coming up soon and leave him home with Grandma and Grandpa.