Adventures in Dining

So I am trying the whole "baby led weaning" concept. This is not the idea of letting the baby cue you when he is ready to stop breastfeeding (if this were the case Andrew and Quinn may still be breastfed to this day I fear) - but it is a way of introducing solids. I think the concept comes over from the UK so they phrase it differently than we would here.

So Teagan has tried bread in various forms (pizza crusts, bagels, sourdough bread bowl tops, etc.) and he has tried clementines and broccoli. I am trying to stick with only one really new food at a time, but it is hard to sometimes limit things. So the new food of the day was bananas. Now -- the back story on this is that as a kid I really did not like bananas and even today as an adult I really don't like them once they are over ripe. I really don't like the idea of mushing up a banana and spoon feeding it to my kids as baby food though I sucked it up and did so with the other guys.

So with the baby led weaning concept - I get to just hand him a banana. But I know already this won't go well and there will be a big mess. I had read on another blog (see here) that I could leave the peel on and then he could grab that and work on it. She also suggested trimming the peel a bit and giving only half the banana. All great suggestions -- and it went fairly well... up until he had already knocked off two big chunks of it and was madly trying to suck down anything left in the peel to the point where all that was left was the peel...

Well, here - you've got to see it for yourselves:


So here he is happily enjoying the banana (with a crazed death grip on it by the way)















Next I have yanked the peel away from him because he was trying to eat just that. He is so hysterical about it that he doesn't notice the banana pieces in front of him that I have rescued from the high chair.















Now he sees them and is happier -- but not for long because they go flying out of his hands and he gets mad again right way (I can't grab the camera again this time because I had to clean my hands again after the rescue).















Ahhh... but them mom saves the day and I tossed the pieces into this baby food holder thing that we had from when the twins were babies. Of course, the downside it is a horrendous device to clean after banana has been mashed through it. But he was very happy with it until he had mashed it to liquid and had nothing left in it and I was not ready for a second round so he got scooped up and taken upstairs for bath time.















So I am expecting strange diapers in the near future because I am pretty darn sure he actually ingested some of this. Most of his "eating" so far has been purely recreational. Our way of saying "see little man, you get food just like the big people" as a way of appeasing him during mealtimes. But apparently, he really likes this stuff and thinks we have been holding back. I assume he may be more demanding about it now. We'll see. Of course an added bonus was that the whole thing totally grossed out the older boys which I found funny as they generally are the ones trying to gross ME out.

"Mom, have you ever held a slug in your hands?"

says Quinn moments ago...

"Hmmm... not sure." "Well, I just did!" (big grin that looks more like a smirk). "Fabulous... now go wash your hands." "I already did!"

Well, at least he knows good hygiene, right? And I had a quiet house for about 30 minutes. Now they are wrestling on the stairs and they woke the baby up and all is loud again.

Nothing else new to report. The house hunting is at a stand still as we looked at the one house and it needs tons of work -- in particular, the whole water system is a mess. Probably needs a new well, for sure a new septic system , possibly the pipes and such to and from the house -- and all the cosmetic stuff we already knew about. There isn't really anything else on the market that meets our picky criteria.

I'm not sure what to do next.

Baby crying again -- gotta go!

Pictures!

Teagan can sit! (as of about 5 days ago)
Love those dimples!
From today (I found the camera cord!) He is such a content little guy these days. I suppose that will change now that I typed it up.

Fun baby

Hmmm... I can't find the cable that connects my camera to the computer. I wanted to share pictures again. Bummer. I'll have to ask Joe about it when he gets home. He is the king of finding lost things.

So Teagan is pretty cute today. He grins his head off everytime he sees me. It is like he has just figured out that I come and go and he is so pleased about it all. He is also finally really getting better at floor time. He tend to scoot himself backwards (away from what he is trying to get!) and gets a bit irked about it -- but it is still cute. I have also now witnessed rolling in both ditrections. I was really impressed about the back to tummy roll yesterday because he was very smooth about it. But, he didn't repeat the performance -- it still seems to be pretty sporadtic. Also, if he has recently nursed or nursed for too long last time -- tummy time is still a sure fire way for him to vomit. Poor guy.

We also played a game in the kitchen with stacking cups. He sits up with me behind him in case he gets wobbly and he knocks around the stacking cups. I kept grabbing them and setting them back up. He was very intent about it. That cute little "must grab this, must knock this down" mentality that babies get. I would have liked to see his face during it but since I was helping keep him from bonking his head, I didn't get to. The kitchen floor was a nice twist because the cups make great sounds when you knock them and they spin and roll away better too.

I am so impressed that he sits up at 4.5 months of age. I will have to look up when the other guys were sitting because I don't think it was this early.

Today I have a meeting at work... then we go see a house for sale that I have already walked through one time but Joe hasn't. The plan is to have Nick and my parents come take a peek too. we are all trying to assess what work really needs done on this house (great property, great neighborhood -- house is really a mess needing lots of updates). I need to call about meeting with a bank too about financing.

Andrew has a 1/2 day and should be walking in the door pretty soon. His room is a disaster so we will tackle that until it is time for the meeting.

Too much information...

So maybe I shouldn't discuss my job when the kids are in earshot. At lunch today out of no where Quinn asks me "how does a baby die when it is inside a mommy's tummy?" Whoa. So I say "how do you know about that?" and he says that I told him one time (which I don't recall doing). So I basically said they might become sick or something may have happened with the cord that goes to the belly button. He was fine with that info.

Then he proceeds to talk about babies: "So when I was 4 we didn't have any babies... then we got a baby. He didn't come from your butt they had to slice your tummy open. You needed a big bandaid -- bigger than the small ones... what would happen if I needed a bandaid that big... it is good we have a baby now, we needed a baby in our house."

Shortly after this I grab fussy Teagan and to entertain him I let him play with my cup of water and he tries to take a sip and dribbles it all back out of his mouth. I mention that Teagan just doesn't know how to swallow quite yet. Quinn pipes up again, "if he doesn't know how to swallow, how does he drink breastmilk?" So I say, "yes you are right, he CAN swallow but only when he is sucking, he can't swallow from a cup yet." Then Quinn says, "what about his baby cup?" and I point to the sippy trainer cup and he says "no the other one" and I realize he means the bottles Joe uses when I am at work... so I explain that those are bottles and have nipples on them that babies can suck. Quinn is perplexed by this for some reason. I explain that some babies get all their milk from bottles. That seems weird to him too. Funny to me that bottle-feeding is so foreign to him!

Anyway... it was an interesting lunch!

Now on to house cleaning. We have a realtor coming this afternoon to talk with us and look at the house -- argh! It is such a mess around here!

Trying again to upload video to blogger...

If this works you will gets to see Teagan laughing. Andrew can get him laughing like no one else. The angle is weird because I was sort of holding the camera out in front of him without really seeing what I was getting.


Hey maybe it worked! Here goes nothing :)

"He wasn't talking about you mom, he was talking to his PRETEND stupid mom!"

(overheard conversation between Quinn and Connor in the car)
So apparently, I am not the stupid mom. There is a pretend one though. Hmmm. Not even sure what this really means!

So I am tired and the baby is vomiting every time he nurses and the twins are full of energy. Nothing new.

We are officially house hunting now. We found a fixer upper that has a really great location/neighborhood but really does need quite a bit of work. I am overwhelmed by the idea of trying to get this house presentable so we could sell it and deal with getting a loan to buy a new house and then deal with fixing it up... BUT I am also so tired of feeling so crammed in this house and want more space desperately.

At the moment we haven't been to see the house on the inside but have peeked around at in from the outside as it is vacant. It seems to us they are asking too much for it given the current housing market conditions and the fact that it needs so much work. So the plan is to find a realtor to show it to us, talk to a bank at some point and possibly make an offer... OR just keeping looking. SIGH.

Crying 5 year old alert -- gotta go!