Baby days

Julie's growing up so fast that sometimes it feels like her babyhood is slipping away -- or falling off, maybe, shed like skin. Just in the past couple weeks she's started creeping, getting on her hands and knees, and rocking. She's fascinated by everything and can play happily with almost anything for 20, 30 minutes. Tonight she sat in her high chair while I sang her nursery rhymes and cleaned the kitchen. I put coins and tiny toys in 3 of her hospital 2.5 oz bottles and let her shake them and throw them on the floor. I was putting the dishes away, singing,

"Thomas put the kettle on,
Thomas put the kettle on,
Thomas put the kettle on,
We'll all have tea.

"Julie take it off again,
Julie take it off again,
Julie take it off again,
They've all gone away."

Every time I got to her name, she'd look up and grin at me. Thomas, meanwhile, (who by the way is in love with this version of Mother Goose, and has some surprising favorites, including the above rhyme, undoctored (and further by the way the Old Mother Hubbard rhyme in that book has some chokingly funny art)) is taking a bath. He's practicing for upcoming swim lessons, trying to put his whole face underwater even though he's always been terrified of water on his face. He's missing the song, but he makes it out to play Julie's game with her, picking up the impromptu rattles every time she drops them.

Julie has a favorite bedtime book now too -- it's Bear Snores On, one of Thomas's all-time toddler favorites (good gift, godparents!). Sometimes all three of us sit in the rocking chair together and read it; sometimes it's just me and Julie while Thomas is in his own room having his own nighttime ritual. The poetry of Bear Snores On has always made it one of my favorites, and there are a couple of points that already make Julie giggle out loud, as she's patting the book, hard, with two hands, in that "doesn't know quite how to make the individual digits move separately" way she'll lose so soon.

After this book and a song, she'll often go right to sleep on her own -- a feat Thomas still has only replicated a few times. They're so different!

In food, too, Julie's "infant days" seem to be ending. She eats lots of foods now. She's funny in that a few times she's eaten a whole bowl of food, while making a weird "ehh" face at every bite. So far she's had apples (yes, delicate pink!), sweet potatoes, pears, and a little bit of peaches, as well as cereal. I also have some local beets and green beans frozen, even though she probably won't be ready for those foods for another month.

One thing we never thought to do with Thomas was to give him Cheerios to play with while we ate long before he was able to actually pick them up. We've been doing this with Julie and she's hilarious -- through incredible, diligent, and constant effort, she usually manages to grasp one between her finger and thumb over the course of our meal. Then she brings it up in front of her face and stares at it, puzzled. She will furrow her brows a bit, as if she's wondering why she's done this, and then painstakingly move her hand off the high chair tray, and drop the Cheerio on the floor, where Paci has been patiently waiting. Julie seems to think that this is her task and the purpose of all these Cheerios, like isn't it nice of mom to let me give Paci all this dog food. She has not once tried to put a Cheerio in her mouth.

Speaking of which, the other thing fun about this stage is that we have finally achieved fully mutual dog-baby adoration and fascination. Julie watches Paci constantly, and intermittently tries to follow her (unsuccessfully, but not for long). She's also learned the trick -- and if you're a microbe-phobe, you may want to skip this sentence -- of smearing her hand in her food and holding it down for Paci to lick.

Today while I was sorting things in Julie's room she was playing on the floor and managed to rock, roll, and creep her way to an adamantly not-baby-friendly box of stuff. Catch-all box, one of those ones full of things I don't need but haven't made time to sort and throw out. I was right next to her, so waited to see what she'd do with the stuff. First, pencils. I've never seen so much excitement about pencils. Did you know you can hold them at this end? And that end! And you can wave them. And roll them on the floor. And scrape with them. And turn them around and around. And -- hey, this box makes a nice noise when I shake it. What are all those shiny things in there? I'm going to get one out. Got -- no, it's -- well, this is good enough; what is this thing?

She took things out of the box and put them back, never tiring of the rattling sound it all made, until I was sick of cleaning the room and took her with me to find out what was happening downstairs.

And all this happened today.

The secret is...

Thomas and I made raspberry shortcakes for dessert tonight. He was a bit ambivalent about the raspberries; "those are spicy," he announced when he saw them on his plate. He never really ate them (I think he doesn't like the texture), so I was trying to negotiate getting them myself after he was done gobbling up the sweet biscuits.

"Could I have one of your berries?" I asked.

He looks them over, apparently trying to decide. "You can have..." his finger drifts. "Actually, you can't have all of these."

"Can I have one of them?"

"No, you can't have any of my berries, but you can have some other berries."

This is the point at which Matt, holding the baby and trying to fend her busy fingers off his ceramic bowl, blatantly reaches over and drinks about half the orange juice out of Thomas's cup. Thomas apparently doesn't notice, involved in negotiations with me.

"I guess the secret is not to ask first," I say significantly, looking at Matt, but Thomas pipes up.

"No, the secret is, if you want orange juice, you can drink it out of my cup," he says with a wicked grin.

Matt and I both break out laughing. "Boy, he doesn't miss anything." He laughs gleefully at our appreciation. But I can't resist looking for more abuse. "Oh, is that the secret?"

"Yeah." Begins his sing-song: "Whoooo waaantts orrrange juuuice?"

"I do."

"Okay."

"Can I drink it out of your cup?"

"No, but you can drink it out of the orange juice bag!!!" Cackles with pleasure.

So I waited till he went to bed to nick the last five berries off his plate. Mom always wins.

First wave of baby food posts

First a few more family recipes, 10 months:

Thomas's first stir fry:

Stir fry 4 chicken breasts, cubed, in vegetable oil with garlic, soy sauce, and ginger.
In separate wok, heat vegetable and safflower oil. Add garlic and broccoli, stir fry for a few minutes. Add kale, stir fry for a few minutes, add snow peas and stir fry a few minutes, add ginger and soy sauce. Add water chestnuts and cherry tomatoes and stir fry for a couple minutes. Stir in chicken and serve over rice.

Take one serving and puree in blender. This worked out way better than I expected. I think if I'd known how well my blender would handle meats, I wouldn't have bothered buying a food mill. Thanks Ty! It's six years old and still blends like crazy.

This was Thomas's favorite meal so far, I think.

Beef stew with beets:

Cut up 1.5 lbs. beef roast. Dredge in flour and brown in large saucepan with fresh garlic. Add 2 Tbsp cooking wine to loosen brown stuff on bottom of pan. Add 4 cups vegetable broth, 4 baby beets, cut up, 6 small potatoes, cut up, 1 large onion, cut up, 2 carrots, cut up, and any other loose vegetables looking for a meal to be part of. Bring to a boil and simmer for an hour, covered. As before, put one serving in blender. The beets give a really nice richness to the broth.

Barley risotto:

Add 1 cup barley to large saute pan. Add about 3/4 cup chicken broth or enough to just wet barley. Add about 4 cloves fresh garlic, sliced. Bring broth to a boil, stirring constantly, and boil until most of the liquid is gone, then add a little more broth. Keep doing this for about 40 minutes, then add 1 zucchini, sliced, and a bunch of spinach, torn into pieces. Cook 2 links sausage, removed from skin, in a separate pan and add towards end of cooking. Continue to cook barley until it has absorbed about 4.5 cups of liquid (I used 4 cups chicken broth and 0.5 cup water).

In retrospect I think this would have been better with chicken instead of sausage, but it's hard to tell. Thomas liked it, anyway. So did I. Barley risotto is pretty excellent. I'll have to make it more in future.

Another family recipe: lentil pasta

We had a great dinner tonight. This recipe is good for babies that want to be able to enjoy dinnertime with everybody else and eat a little finger food.

Lentil Pasta

1/2 lb uncooked rotini or penne pasta (we didn't have this much, so made a little penne for Thomas and spaghetti for Matt & I)
3/4 c lentils
6 cloves fresh garlic, divided
2 carrots, sliced thin
2 bay leaves
1 Tbsp dried basil (fresh if you've got it)
1 Tbsp dried minced onion (ditto)
1 Tbsp butter
1 can diced tomatoes
olive oil
8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 bunch green onions, cut the whitish part up
2 Tbsp wine

1. Put the lentils in a pot with 3 c water and bring to a boil. Add the carrots, 4 cloves garlic, the bay leaves, basil, onion, butter, and tomatoes and boil uncovered for 20-30 min, until the lentils are soft.
2. While the lentils are boiling, start water for the pasta.
3. Slice or mince the last two cloves of garlic. Saute the mushrooms and green onions in a little olive oil with the garlic until the mushrooms start to brown. Add the wine and stir until the wine is mostly evaporated, then turn off the heat on the mushrooms.
4. When the lentils are soft, put the pasta in to boil according to package directions. Put the lentil mixture in the blender and blend until smooth.
5. Cool a tablespoon or two of the lentil mixture, and put it on baby's tray. Put a few pieces of pasta in it and put baby in the chair. For adults, put pasta in bowls, pour lentil puree over it, and top with mushrooms.
6. After dinner, if the baby (like mine) is not so good with finger food, you can give him some more of the lentil puree with a spoon.

Thomas was so excited to be eating with us again. He spent our whole meal sucking on four pieces of pasta, but he loved it. We let him play with the spaghetti too. That was fun.

I should mention that I adapted this recipe from something my college roommate used to make. I've been enjoying various lentil pastas for about 7 years now, but this one has got to be one of my favorite versions ever. For one thing, I never thought of blending the lentils before, and it makes it much more spaghetti-sauce-ish. It's worth trying even if you're baby-free.