Give Peas a Chance!

Austin is no longer on a strictly liquid diet - he has entered the wonderful world of FOOD! He's been sampling his way through different cereal varieties, but has now moved on to veggies. You know what they say, "start with veggies first, or they'll never eat them!" There have been new studies to prove it makes no difference whether fruit or veg are introduced first, but call me oldschool - if I took a bite of a sweet, juicy strawberry, do you really think I'd be so eager to eat my broccoli? Not this girl.

As a mom, there are many things I *swore* I would never/only do. I should have remembered what MY mom told me when I was young..."swearing" is bad. In this case, it's because if you "swear" you'll do something, it's just gonna come back and bite you in the butt. Nothing is written in stone, and as much as we hate to admit it - we are not in control! These tiny dictators have the reins - the sooner you accept this, the sooner you'll learn to "go with the flow". So - I swore that I would never feed my child processed baby food - I was going to make my own, no ifs ands or buts about it. However...after I let Abigayle try a jar out of convenience...she turned up her nose at anything that I made for her. So, I gagged my way through jars of babyfood - I felt pretty guilty feeding it to her, when there was NO WAY that this gunk was going to make it into MY mouth. But, it was either that, or a starving baby. You haven't met stubborn until you've met my Abigayle. You can say "if she's hungry, she'll eat it!". Not so easy.

I was excited to have a chance at redeeming myself when Austin came along...handmade babyfood right from the start! I stocked up on some fresh veggies on my last shopping trip, broke out my Magic Bullet (not to be confused with the Silver Bullet...that's a whole other story, and probably not appropriate for use in my kitchen), and ice cube trays! It was fun, and satisfying (again, not to be confused with the Silver Bullet...)! And the verdict....he LIKES it! So far he's had peas and sweet potatoes. Green beans are lined up in the freezer! I feel so good about feeding him something that I made myself - I know exactly what's in it (did you know that a small jar of mixed veggies contains 24mg of sodium?!), and where it came from. It even looks better than the store-bought stuff - vibrant colours, vs. grey sludge. Besides, he's got to learn to appreciate my cooking sooner or later, right? Bon Apetit!