Poo in a jar, blueberry poo, and my picky child

I have this post that has been sitting in rough draft purgatory for weeks.  Months, probably, because my sense of time has completely collapsed.  You know what it was about?  My 2 cents about how to make your kid a fantastic eater.

Seriously.  MJ has been fantastic at the food stuffing of the face.  As in, can't get enough of the broccoli.  And I was proud.  I liked to think it was my commitment to making all her food from scratch.  And because I'm a fantastic cook.

But it turns out none of these statements are true.  She is no longer my showcase stuffing-of-the-face child.  As in, I will eat blueberries, blueberries, and more blueberries, until even my poo smells like blueberries.  It makes diaper changes kind of pleasant, but then you realize you're enjoying the smell of her poo and remember that that's gross. 

And furthermore, she now picks up the food off her tray that is not deigned worthy of her lips, looks at me, lifts up her tiny baby arm and dramatically drops it on the ground.  She then says with a french accent "How dare you feel mama-smugness!  I will show you!"

On a side note, today I was teaching my students about methane clathrates.  And one student volunteered a cheerful tidbit about some kids who were saving poo in a jar and trying to get high from the methane.  I swear to you, MJ, that if you are ever that desperate to get high I will go buy you some whiskey.  I'm certain I will regret saying that someday, so I'll go ahead and take it back now.

Adventures in gnawing.

It's been a busy week. I gave y'all a task, you kindly obliged, and then I ran off without thanking you. While MJ didn't win the contest, she did land herself in the top five percent (okay, really the top 6 percent, but if you round... significant figures and what not.) So that's pretty sweet. I know that it's all a popularity contest. Okay, not even a popularity contest. An advertising campaign designed by Parents to get you to their website. But regardless, it makes me feel kind of warm and fuzzy inside people voted for her, even if their was some arm twisting involved.


Last week was MJ's 8 month birthday. It boggles my mind that she still hasn't been breathing oxygen for as long as she resided in my ute. It feels like she's been here forever, life before her arrival is a distant memory. She's been crawling up a storm and generally fascinated by the whole world. Although everything still goes in the mouth, after giving her an unplugged cord to chew on for a while she is less interested in chewing on all the cords plugged into the wall. But the forbidden is still the most sought after... I have not yet figured out any way to childproof the dog food or water bowl; if the dog food wasn't perfect choke-inducing size I would let her gnaw on some until she discovered it's really not very good. But instead, I have to constantly place it out of her reach and then remember to put it back so poor Vito doesn't starve. And for this reason it is the one thing that MJ is most fascinated by. She WANTS that dog food like you wouldn't believe. This doesn't bode well for drugs and boys later in life.

I love how she follows me around the house as I do chores. She's constantly curious what I'm up to, and participates in whatever way she can. She helped me unload the grocery bags yesterday, pausing for a while to gnaw on a leek. A long while, actually. 20 minutes of gnawing on a leek. Is this an acceptable chew toy for an 8 month old? We spend a lot of time in the kitchen, one of the few child proofed rooms in the house, as well as outside. I still love chewing on grass so I figure she can go to town.

I've become obsessed with buying organic and finally joined a Co-op (more on that to come.) We've been getting more adventurous with what we feed her: yesterday was lentils with onions, peppers and carrots. It was tasty, I brought some in for lunch today. I'm working on a leek concoction, and her preliminary opinion of leeks seems to be a good one.

Whenever we go out to eat she tries to grab everything off the table and off our plate. So sometimes we let her, expecting the reaction to be one of disgust, and usually we're wrong. This weekend she gnawed on a pickle for a while and loved it. I'm guessing this is not something you're supposed to feed an 8 month old, though I never see it explicitly stated. The assumption is probably that it doesn't need saying. Last week she gnawed on a lime for a while; despite a pause every now and then for a sour face she continued gnawing. Then I remembered that whole no-citrus-fruits-the-first-year bit. Parenting has so many rules.

Since I can't be productive today...

I had planned on a long, full day in the lab.  But the argon tank is empty (fascinating, no?) so I can't run anything.  So instead?  I'll update.

I sometimes forget that this blog is as much about documenting MJ's life as it is an outlet and soapbox for me.  And you know what?  I haven't done much updating lately.

Yesterday, MJ sort of crawled.  I'm not sure if it counts yet, but she's finally able to go forward.  For months now she has been scooting backward.  Back in February DH made a bet that it would happen within a week.  And you know what?  It didn't.  Man, I really should have bet money on that one.  And it is good.  I always said I'd be perfectly content if she was a late crawler, but in the past several weeks her grumpiness has been grumpier than my grumpiness (meaning: very grumpy).  She has been so frustrated by her inability to get at what she wants, but now that she can move in the direction she wants she's less grumpy.  She's still slow at getting where she wants to go, but she can manage it.

And so, I am trying to become cleaner.  It is very, very hard.  As a working mama I have accepted that our house will be chaotic.  But now, I can't even do that.  Because chaos=not baby proofed.  And she loves to lick everything: the stool, the heating grate, my laptop, DH's shoe...  I realize these things won't kill her, and once she discovers something's not food she generally leaves it alone (kind of like the dog.)  Such as grass: at first she tried to eat it, but after realizing that even broccoli tasted better she became content to just play with it.  And by play with it, I mean rip out all the grass in her tiny-12-inch-arm-radius.  So we have little circles of torn out grass in the yard, (crop circles?  aliens?) but at least she's learning to like the outdoors, no?

In other baby news, she is a great eater.  Here is our list of things she will happily eat: peas, carrots, butternut squash, zucchini, sweet potatos, parsnips, green beans, avocado, bananas, and BROCCOLI!  (note: blogger wants me to add an "e" to "potatos" but I resisted.)  Broccoli is a huge coup for me, because I hate it.  In fact, I'm a bit of a picky eater (though SO much better than I used to be).  And so I have made it a goal to have her become a good eater early on.  As part of this goal, I have been making her baby food, which allows more texture and variety than what you can find in the jarred baby food.  My Mom (generously) bought us the Beaba Babycook.  It's spendy, I'm not going to lie.  And probably not necessary, but it does make the whole process much easier.  I can make a batch while I'm making dinner, and it's so whip!bang!boom! done.  Furthermore, unlike most grinders out there (we have the magic bullet) you have more control on how well ground you make the food.  It's not all or nothing, so I've been able to gradually make her food more lumpy.

And it makes me feel good.  Now that I'm not breastfeeding, I feel like this is one small thing I can do to make sure she eats well.  So I send her with food everyday to daycare, rather than relying on the food they provide.  And (one of the many reasons I LOVE our daycare) they don't act like I'm putting them out by slightly complicating their feeding routine.  They are always very good about honoring the requests of the parents.  We haven't introduced many fruits yet, largely because we haven't had to.  I really wanted her to eat veggies first, so that she didn't yet know there are tastier foods out there.  We added (lots of) formula and rice cereal in the beginning in order to make them more palatable, then gradually reduced it until now she just eats straight veggies.