Baby Food

I just finished up making Will's first batch of sweet potatoes and I am so proud of myself that I just had to come share it with the blog world. I've been wanting to make Will's food instead of buying the jar stuff...but I didn't know if I would really be up to it once the time came.

Last week, I bought some avocados thinking that would be a really easy first food to give Will since it only requires some mashing. Wrong. Avocados turned out to be a pain and Will didn't even like them. Anyway, as I was browsing the organic produce, I noticed that sweet potatoes were 1.29 each and there was one HUGE sweet potato in there. It was at least twice the size of the other sweet potatoes in the bin, so I thought I would go ahead and buy it. It ended up making 20 ounces of pureed sweet potatoes! Gerber sweet potatoes cost 59 cents per jar. There are 2.5 ounces in a jar. That is about 23 cents an ounce. Mine cost about 6 cents an ounce! I saved almost 75%! I'm sure the savings would be even more if I had used normal sweet potatoes, rather than organic.

I'm thinking it was worth the effort considering it will be enough sweet potatoes for at least a month. I just peeled the sweet potato, cut it into chunks, and steamed it. After steaming it, I pureed it in the blender and spooned it into two ice cube trays. Tomorrow, I will transfer the frozen cubes to freezer bags and when Will is ready to eat it, I'll just remove a cube or two from the bag and thaw it. I'm really excited about this now that I've made my first batch and I'm anxious to try some other food! I'm just hoping Will likes sweet potatoes.

On a related note, we gave avocados one last try yesterday. He did better with them, but still didn't seem to like them too much. He would at least get the avocado in his mouth, but he wouldn't swallow and eventually just spit it out. So we moved on to rice cereal today and he did a lot better. I think he even swallowed most of it. Maybe he can try out those sweet potatoes later this week!

To make up for the boring post, I will leave you with this video that I am totally stealing from Trichelle's blog...but it is the cutest thing. Chris and I have watched it over and over again and it is still funny!

6 Months

Will is 6 months old today! I cheated and took his 6 month pictures last Sunday. I knew today would be a busy day and I wanted to take some with Chris, so we did them early. I think 6 months might be the perfect age to take pictures. We had so much fun doing them. The rest of his 6 months pictures can be seen here.

We celebrated his half birthday by giving him avocados (mixed with milk) for dinner. He didn't love them, but he didn't gag either. I'd say he did pretty well for his first taste of solids (if you don't count the time we tried to give him a carrot on a whim). We took some pictures and video taped him, but we haven't uploaded them yet...I'll have to post them later.

He also had his 6 month check up and shots today. He did really well with his shots. He just cried for minute as if his feelings were hurt, but seemed perfectly fine minutes later. He weighed 15 lbs, 4 oz (25th percentile) and was 25.5 inches long (20th percentile). However, he was 15 lbs, 4 oz when I weighed him at the hospital a week ago and the hospital scales are more accurate...so I'm guessing he actually weighs a few ounces more.

I called Chris after we left the pediatrician's office to tell him about the appointment. This is how that conversation went:

Me: He said we need to give Will cereal.

Chris: Oh, like Cheerios?

Me: No! He can't eat Cheerios yet!

Chris: Oh, so what...Malt-O-Meal?

Me: No....rice cereal.

Chris: Rice Krispies??

Dear Lord, please don't let anything happen to me! I'm not sure Will would survive. :)

Will and His Girl

Will and his girl, Emma Kate, got to play together a few days ago. I'll admit that the matching outfits was staged, but the hand holding was not! They actually held hands on two different occasions, I didn't have my camera out for the first time, but Kristin was able to get some pictures of it. Cute!

Will never has any fun!

Update

I have not done a Will update in a long time, so I thought I should get going on that before he turns 6 months old next week! Can you believe that?

These are his 4 month pictures...

I think he must have been tired during his 4 month photo shoot, because I really couldn't get any smiles out of him. I still think the pictures turned out pretty good though.

Here are the 5 month pictures....











And here are some pictures I took of him last week while he was playing....




In this last picture, you can see his looong eyelashes. I cannot tell you how many people (most often strangers that we see when we're out) have said, "Boys always get the eyelashes." It is the one thing that everyone seems to comment on.

I can't even remember the last time I did an update, so I'm not really sure where to start....

- Sometime between 3 and 4 months, Will started rolling over both ways. Just after 4 months, he started rolling over in his swaddle at night, which would make him mad and he'd wake up. We stopped swaddling and now he sleeps on his tummy all the time. He's been sleeping really good for about the last month now. He usually sleeps 9-10 hours without waking up, but if he does wake up, I just give him his pacifier and he goes right back to sleep.

- He started doing the tripod sit just before he turned 4 months and now he is sitting up pretty good. He's getting a lot better at balancing himself. If he has a toy to play with, he can sit up for a long time on his own.

- He wants to crawl really bad, but I think it will take him awhile to figure it out. He has gotten to the point where he'll go backwards a little bit instead of forwards, but I don't think he even realizes he's moving at all.

- He has really strong legs. A lot of people comment on how well he stands up with our help. I never really thought it was anything special, but apparently he is really good at it for his age (he's been doing it for a few months).

- I had to start brushing his hair a couple of weeks ago. It has finally gotten long enough that it just sticks up straight off of his head if we don't brush it down. I think he looks pretty cute with his hair all combed.

- He doesn't have any teeth yet, but I suspect that he is in the beginning stages of teething. He really likes to bite down on anything he can get in his mouth and he's been drooling more than usual. So we'll see.

- He has a really good laugh! Chris can easily get him laughing when he's playing with him. He usually laughs at me when I sing to him or when I'm telling Chris a story. He thinks we're both pretty funny. However, yesterday he laughed harder than he's ever laughed before. Yes, even harder than this. Chris bought a Nintendo Wii last weekend and we bought Dance Dance Revolution for it yesterday. As soon as we got it set up, I tried it out and Will thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. He just laughed and laughed and laughed. Then Chris got up to do it and he didn't think it was funny at all. And let me just tell you, I am horrible at it...so yes, it was a little humiliating that my almost-6-month-old son would laugh at me like that! :) Chris and I will never forget that! It was hilarious.

- This is my favorite - he started reaching for me last week! I think it is the sweetest thing, but I think it also means that he is starting to get a little attached to me. There have been a couple of times over the past couple of weeks that he has only wanted me to hold him. It's usually only when he's tired, but it is definitely something I'll have to get used to. He normally lets anyone and everyone hold him.

I can't believe how fast my baby is growing up!

Happy 2008!

What did you do to bring in the New Year? I was in bed, but I do remember watching the ball drop so I must've been awake. I told Chris last night that I always feel a little sad to say goodbye to the last year. I don't know why, though. It's not like I'm sad when it's a new month or a new week. 2007 was a great year. Definitely one that I will never forget.

Will and I started out the year on a good note. After he woke up at 7:15 this morning to eat, I brought him into bed with me and Chris. I let him play with my hand (one of his favorite toys), while I dozed off. He eventually fell asleep and we didn't wake up again until 10:45.

When we finally woke up, we found Chris playing Guitar Hero and Will had to get in on the action.

Carrots

We aren't really starting solids until Will is 6 months old in a couple of weeks, but he has started reaching for our food while we are eating, which is supposed to be a sign that babies are ready for solids. We were eating stew a few nights ago and Will started smacking his lips like he really wanted to try it. So I thought I could just mash up a carrot and try to give it to him. Chris and I were both curious to see what his reaction to real food would be. I checked the recipe to make sure I didn't put anything too crazy in the stew and then mashed away. This is what happened....



Actually, that isn't all that happened. Chris gave it a try after I had tried a few times and Will ended up gagging himself. Needless to say, we will be waiting a few more weeks to try anything else and it won't be carrots next time. Oh, and I also found out that his first solids should actually be liquid. Lesson learned. :)

Here is another video of Will playing with a new toy Christmas night. It cracks me up when he notices the video camera.