I really liked this soup that I made yesterday and it’s really simple to make in conjunction with steamed squash. Pretty much you chop onion, cook, chop squash and cook it till it’s done. Put a steamer on top of the pot of soup as it boils with other pieces of squash to steam for baby.

• 1 butternut squash, peeled
• Nutmeg
• Cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Salt and pepper
• 1 onion, chopped
• 6 cups chicken/veggie stock
• Maple syrup (~2Tbsp)

Cut squash into 1-inch chunks. In large pot melt butter. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 8 minutes. Add squash and stock. Bring to a simmer and cook until squash is tender (I think I cooked mine around 30 minutes). Purree soup with an immersion blender or pull out the chunks to purree in a blender. Stir and season with nutmeg, cinnamon, maple syrup, salt, and pepper to taste.

Last night we started Josie off on her first solid food, yams. Somehow I couldn’t find sweet potato’s in the store, so yams it was! We are following the baby-led weaning approach to eating which basically means we put very soft french-fry shaped finger food in front of her from day 1 and let her decide what to eat and how much. She was definitely ready as she was interested in the food and picked it up like a champ. She had a little trouble with not shutting her hand completely and squishing the yam out of it. But she definitely got a bunch of it in her mouth and swallowed as evidenced by her output this morning. Initially I think she was overwhelmed at all the cameras pointed at her as the food was put in front of her! The high chair unfortunately seemed to get a bit in the way with the big straps and the high table part, she was much more excited and quick to grab and shove the yams in her mouth once I put her on my lap and the yam on the table in front of her. It wasn’t as messy as I had feared, although the cats all came over to check out the goods on the floor.

I went a little nuts with the cooking yesterday and cooked all day long when Josie would let me and so the adults had quite a feast (*relative to normal dinners of mac + cheese or takeout which are more common now) as well. We had yam pie, yam, spinch, carmelized onions and fresh mozzarella pizza, and butternut squash soup. I hope to continue making double duty out of making food for Josie and food for us, such as the baked yam’s that made their way into her dinner and our dinner and dessert. The butternut squash soup happened because they were cheap at the store, it would also be a great baby/adult meal with steamed squash for the baby and soup for the adults, it was really easy once you’ve put in the effort to peel and chop the squash already. I’ll post that recipe later.

Josie’s verdict on the yams: not loving them, not hating them. The only time she spit anything out was when she bit off a chunk of yam, otherwise she seemed interested but not thrilled. We’ll try again tonight, maybe she’ll like them more.
 

 

I can’t believe it’s been half a year since Josie was born. It feels like it was such a short time ago and while some individual days can drag by (like when we’re sick) the weeks seem to be flying past us. This last month we’ve seen some dramatic changes. Josie has mastered sitting and only falls over when she’s grabbed for something way outside of her reach. She loves to walk now while holding hands and took a few steps on her own.

Otherwise this month she’s spent a lot of time comfort nursing because of her painful teeth. She’s got a bigger double chin for it too which is good since she also likes to walk everywhere and will need that stored up energy. She loves the cats and get’s very excited when she see’s them and wants to chase them, giving them ample time to avoid her. Mio and Fred tend to only go about 5 feet away and wait for her to catch up to them before sneaking a bit further away again. She is very clear about which way she wants to go and what she wants to do. We keep having to divert her from eating the cat food. It’s very convenient to understand when she wants to eat as she just walks over to me now and dive bombs the food source. She is highly distractable while nursing now.

She is starting to have some patience for reading books, as opposed to just eating them. She seems like she might have started to understand the idea that her ‘touch and feel kitten’ book has pictures of the same furry creatures that run around her house. She will pat the cat in the book about as well as she pats the read ones, gently about 2 out of 3 times. She also appreciates the books with funny animal sounds for her reader to make like ‘moooo’ and ‘baaaa’. They are still shoved in her mouth before we finish reading them, but now I might get a couple of pages in.

This evening we start solid foods, sweet potato is first! Carrots will be second. Otherwise she loves to drink milk from a real cup with great assistance, plays with milk in a bottle without drinking, and will drink small amounts from a sippy cup unintentionally.

Here are some vital stats:

• Size/weight: some 9 month, some 12 month, check for weight and height next week from doc
• Favorite food: breastmilk
• Favorite toy: plastic photo album, xylophone dog, your hands, teething toys
• Favorite book: touch and feel kittens, moo, ba, la la la.
• Favorite activity: walking around while holding our hands, everywhere
• Sleeping: (on rare good days) wakes up twice a night, 9:30 bedtime, ~7am wakeup, bad days she’s awake up to 5 times a night, napping does not happen unless I am wearing her, or nursing her
• New skill: walking holding our hands, clear direction when walking as to which way she wants to go
• Teeth: source of all misery, not yet arrived
• Vocalizations: whining from teeth, louder babbling

George seems to be a little attention starved as this is the current picture of what is in my lap as I look down. He has an impeccable sense of when the baby is sleeping and insists that my lap is now free for him (17 lbs of dead weight) to recline upon. One other thing we’ve changed with the cats is calling them name-cat, such as George-cat, Mio-cat, Ezzy-cat, etc. because otherwise I’m wondering if Josie would ever quite pull it together that they are all of the same species, i.e. a cat. I want to make sure she has a word to identify them with for when we see them outside or at a friend’s house. Yet I don’t want to insult our lovely house-mates by ignoring their names.

Josie has been teething like crazy these days. She’s up at 4am every night just very upset from the pain until the pain reducer kicks in to help her. I assist her in using it properly as opposed to her attempt at doing it herself shown below.

I’m a little older in this photo than Josie currently is, but you get the idea.

I just can’t do it. Tuesday I went to the doc because my throat/tongue has wierd bumpy things and my throat is sore. They did a strep test and we’ll see on Thursday how it comes back. But one of his instructions was to not kiss Josie to try to prevent it from spreading. A few minutes later he pointed out between when he gave me this instruction and the current time, I had already kissed her 4 times. I’ve already noticed I’ve failed a bunch of times today too. This is quite a challenge!

Over the last few days Kaya has gotten friendly, I think she likes the cold weather. She has also allowed Josie to pet her on occasion. Mostly she still likes to sleep in the stroller.