Birthday and mother's day reflections - SAP WARNING!

As I am sitting here at 6am watching I Love Lucy reruns (my favorite show of all time), on my birthday, sipping a hot cup of coffee (the 2nd cup, because I spilled the entire first cup on myself and the couch…that sucked), I am reflecting on being 30, being a mother, and what its like to be married to the man I was made for and to have built a life and a family with him.

Yes yes, sap sap, I know. I considered not writing a blog about this, because its really just personal thoughts and reflections, but I remembered that part of the purpose of this blog is for memory's sake.

I was feeling a little bummed about not being in my 20s anymore. This is the first time Ive ever felt unexcited about a birthday! Its an oddly adult feeling. However a friend told me something yesterday that really hit home. She said she loves her thirties, because once she was entering her 30s, she had already explored and discovered herself and what she loves in life. So she feels like she is able to spend her 30s really enjoying who she is and what she enjoys, rather than the whole "finding yourself" we all do in our 20s. I really like that perspective, and I totally agree! I plan on spending the next decade getting as much out of life as possible.



A few days before my 30th birthday, I got to celebrate my first and only first Mother's Day. What is Mother's Day anyway? Just another greeting card holiday, like Valentine's Day, which I refuse to celebrate. It was interesting because this year, like every year, I started stressing about what to get my mom and stepmom for Mother's Day. All of a sudden I put it into perspective - what will I want from Camila when she's older? What will I expect? The truth - Absolutely nothing. The only thing I would want from her is to spend the day with her, or if she's not living close enough to do that, for her to call me and spend an hour on the phone with me catching me up on the latest and greatest in her life. The only thing I care about on Mother's Day is knowing my children are happy, knowing they are leading fulfilling and happy lives, and having them carve out some time to love on their mom, who loves them more than they will ever know. The last thing I would want is for her to stress about the obligatory gift or flowers.

So I chose to completely forgo gifts and flowers for my mothers (sorry guys!) on the basis that I know now that they feel the same way I do. Instead we hand-made a card for each and spent the day with them.

Before I go in to my Mother's Day memories, I have to say that being a mother is the most incredible, rewarding, amazing, awesome experience in the WORLD. This little girl has changed me more than I thought possible. My heart quadrupled in size the moment I laid eyes on her. It also decided to plant itself OUTSIDE of my body, where it can no longer hide emotions and feelings. I could just stare at her all day. My days spent at home with her are too short and too fast. I kiss her at least once a minute. Even her toes, and I hate feet. I am so grateful and so blessed that my husband and I have built a life where I don't have to miss a single smile, tear, new discovery or excited squeal. This baby girl has my heart wrapped around her finger and that both warms me and scares me in ways only a parent can understand. I remember the week I went into labor with her, where I became so petrified of being a parent, of having to focus on someone else other than myself and my husband, of having my life change, that I broke down in tears. And how that feeling completely disappeared once they placed her in my arms. I look back on that fear now and laugh, because it seems so foolish.
Ok, tears are present…moving on.

We started the day with Camila sleeping later than us (score!) and Donovan and Camila making us a
delicious, special breakfast. After nap time we went on a bike ride, stopping at Dunkin Donuts and the park on the way back. It was a perfect near-90-degree day (the heat and I are friends), so our treat was iced coffee, and since Camila is so used to being able to eat and drink whatever we are eating and drinking, she needed a treat too. So we got her two donut holes…and oh my gosh, I wish I had video taped her reaction when we gave her BOTH at the same time. We have some pretty great pictures…but they don't capture her excitement nearly as well. She was thrilled to have one, but as soon as Donovan placed the other in her hand, she pulled them both close to her, tilted her head back and just started giggling.


We didn't get a picture of that first reaction, but it was this face:

…but in this moment:

She didn't even eat them right away. She sat there admiring her treasure, giggling, pretending to feed us then pulling them back in, pretending to put them back in the cup but never letting her iron grip go, until finally we brought her hands to her mouth and she ate both within minutes. It was pretty damn adorable.

That whole morning pretty much made my day. Just spending it with my little family, sharing special moments and enjoying the sunshine.

We then went to my dad and step-moms for a get together, and then to my mom and stepdad's for dinner. At my dad's, there was a tub of water balloons that Camila was obsessed with! Oh my gosh watching her play with those balloons was SO flipping adorable! She was absolutely delighted for a good 30-45 minutes.

Donovan was telling me to squeeze the balloon, and you can tell by my face that I was the one that knew what was going to happen! 

And there it is!

At my mom's, we just spent time relaxing, eating and playing corn hole. Camila really enjoyed just watching us play, and rolling around in the grass.  :)

We also got some fabulous Mother's Day photos  :)

Happy heart. I am feeling incredibly blessed, not only to be a mother to the most amazing little person I have ever met in my life, or to be the wife of the most caring, loving and loyal man and father I've ever met, but to have a mom who loves me more than life, the way I love Camila, and who absolutely adores her granddaughter. A step-mom who has accepted me as her own daughter, and loves her granddaughter in the same way. And a mother-in-law who raised that previously-mentioned caring, loving and loyal man and who has accepted me in to her family with love and acceptance. What more do you need?! 

Introducing solids the BLW way!

Ive had a few friends lately ask me about how we introduced solids, because friends with babies have seen the massive amounts of pictures I post of Camila eating a wide variety of foods! I figured a blog post would be the perfect way to introduce my mommy-friends to the idea of baby-led weaning  :)

"Baby-Led Weaning" is just a fancy term for feeding your baby whole, natural foods from the start. No purees, no fortified cereals, baby is self-feeding from the start.

The website I started with is www.babyledweaning.com. You can stop reading here if thats all you needed! Ill go ahead and give the reasons we love BLW and some key features of BLW below if you are interested in our perspective.  :)

Obviously this is just one way to do it, and while I personally think its the best way, every parent choses what they think is the best for their kids and their family. So if you think this will work for you, AWESOME! Message me and we will chat, I can chat for hours about FOOD and BABIES. If not, thats great too! Its always good to be educated on the varying choices we have as parents so we can make the best choices we can.

What led us to Baby-Led Weaning?
 "Baby food" didn't make sense to me. They are humans, they eat food…right? What did people do before blenders were invented? What do people do in countries where access to cereals and baby food is limited, and where spices and seasonings are not only part of cooking, they are part of culture? And those cereals that you mix with water - it seemed to be another processed food. How was that better than natural foods?

This is the main question that led me to start doing online research, where I happened upon this method of introducing solids.

Reasons we love BLW:

We worry LESS about choking.
This is probably my favorite perk of BLW, and I know it seems contradictory. While I can totally

Gnawing on a piece of
chicken parm.

understand parents' fear of choking in the beginning, BLW truly teaches kids how to chew BEFORE they even learn how to swallow (purees and cereals teach swallowing first and chewing comes much later). In the very beginning, Camila would just bite and mush food in her mouth without ever really swallowing. She didn't start swallowing food until maybe 2-4 weeks after we started. Now she's 11 months and we can give her whole grapes, blueberries, any larger chunk of food and no matter the size she will immediately move it to the side of her mouth with her tongue and chew it. Even cheerios - she chews every cheerio before swallowing. I have started paying more attention to other babies who are fed purees first and I have noticed that when they move to finger foods, they often try to swallow them whole first, which leads the parents to cut it up super small. And super small food that is easy to swallow doesn't encourage proper chewing either. There's obviously nothing wrong with this if this is the route you chose to go, but I love not really worrying about the size of her food. And yes, babies can chew without teeth! Obviously we aren't giving raw carrots or tough meat - foods like this really require  molars to chew! But those gums are hard and strong and can chew almost everything - even chicken.

Its easy.
She eats what we eat, when we eat. No separate meal times or meal preparations. No time spent spoon feeding her while we simultaneously try to eat.

Chicken Tikka Masala,
homemade at a friends house.

She's an active participant at mealtimes. 
Whether we are eating as a family at home, out to dinner at a restaurant, or over someones house for
dinner, Camila sits in her chair and feeds herself her food while everyone else does the same. She's(usually) not squirming to get down while we shove spoonfuls of food in her mouth. She eats until she's full and then she moves on.

She is being exposed to a wide variety of flavors and textures.
Camila will try anything. If she doesn't like it, she just won't eat it (or, as of late, throw it on the floor…). So far the only thing she consistently doesn't like is eggs. We love adding lots of seasonings and flavors to our meals and watching her experience it with us is so fun.


Developed pincher grip
Her pincher grip developed fully by 8 months. She can pick up a kernel of corn with two fingers, pinky up, like a boss.

OWNING that slippery banana.

Blueberries are by far one of her favorite fruits.

Key points of BLW:
Go to that website I mentioned before to read more in depth, but here are some starter points.

Wait until 6 months to offer solids

Homemade Polish Pirogues, yum!

This is becoming the standard anyway, but many doctors still say FOUR TO six months, which is really quite silly. It doesn't make sense to me to shove a spoonful of food into a babies mouth when they don't even know what food is yet, let alone have a desire for it. We found a doctor who was up to date on recent research and fully backed the 6 month rule as well as going straight to table food. She agreed that cereals were just another processed food with not much health benefit to baby. Wait until baby is aware and reaching for your food, and able to put things in his/her mouth - this means he/she is ready. For Camila, this was around 5.5 months. The average age of readiness is 6 months. 

Start with soft, easily digestible foods

Mainly, fruits and vegetables. Examples: sweet potatoes, steamed/boiled broccoli, steamed/boiled carrots, bananas, etc.

Oranges are one of her favorite
fruits.

Food should be in large chunks

This is hard for parents to accept at first, but since baby still hasn't developed pincher grip, you want a chunk of food that is big enough for him/her to pick up with a fist and still have some sticking out that they can bite. Babies can't get to food inside a closed fist until about 8 months (average) and pincher

grip develops around the same time. Again, baby will bite and might chew but rarely will swallow right away. Now that Camila is older we cut stuff up smaller for her, mainly for control - she will shove an entire orange wedge in her mouth if we let her. With cutting it up, she still shoves multiple pieces in at a time, but at least we can control it better!

Know the difference between choking and gagging.

Most of the time, what people perceive as choking is actually gagging. I can't tell you how many times my mom (sorry mama) has practically flipped her chair over in fear because Camila was "choking". She's never, ever choked - it was always gagging, and she's always handled it. We have literally never had to interfere with her eating. If any sound at all is coming out, then its gagging, and perfectly normal. The gag relax on a baby is in the center of the tongue (compared to the back of the tongue in an adult). Therefor the gagging reflex is triggered much sooner in a baby in order to PREVENT choking, naturally. Babies tend to gag a lot in the beginning, and while its scary and unnerving, just remember that its natural, normal, and part of how baby is learning to handle food. I can't remember the last time Camila gagged on her food - it DOES stop once baby can handle food better.

If there is NO sound coming out, baby is silent, and not breathing, then it is choking and you will need to interfere. This can happen with purees too so in reality all parents should be aware of basic CPR. 

Offer anything and everything you eat

Once baby get the hang of it, you can start offering a wider variety of foods (I think it took us about a month to branch out). Despite what you may hear about nut butters and other common allergens, babies can eat (almost) anything you eat.

Bananas with peanut butter
are a fave.

The only things you should NOT offer a baby are:

~ Honey (through age one - though I have my own opinions on this, Ill keep quiet - for now :)   )

~ WHOLE nuts.
~ Too much salt/sugar

The end. 

If your family has a history of allergies, like a nut allergy or egg allergy, then offer these foods individually so you can watch for a reaction and know what the cause is if he/she does have a reaction. Otherwise, foods commonly avoided, like nut butters, eggs and shellfish, are fine. Camila ended up having a small reaction to cantaloupe, and as it turns out Donovan had the same reaction to it when he was a kid. 

That's it for now! Just some basics, from our perspective and research.  :) No matter which avenue you chose, introducing solids to your baby is such a fun adventure. Ill never forget the first food I ever got to feed my niece, Alison - pureed pears! And for Camila, don't judge, it was ice-cream… just a tiny bite! Its a special experience for you all so it should definitely be enjoyed.  :)

Happy feeding!

She loves her chili.

Adobo tilapia, black beans, mango,
avocado, tortilla- ingredients of fish tacos
all separated out so she can eat it!

Enjoying Pho - she ate our noodles and beef, and we ordered
steamed broccoli on the side.