Baby Led Weaning

After researching Baby Led Weaning and talking about when and how to start solids, Alex and I decided that BLW was the way to go. We were committed to exclusively breastfeed until 6 months and ended up starting BLW a week and a couple days shy of Sebastian's six monthday. It was hard to wait since he was showing all of the "signs" of readiness for a month. I could barely eat anything or drink a bottle of water without him trying to grab it.

So we were pretty excited to start though, to be honest, it also made me a bit sad because it's just another thing along with his three teeth that are proof he's growing up and moving closer to a year. Plus, until now he has depended solely on me (and yes, I know he still does)for his food. Me = emotional mama.

Anyway, we started him on Christmas night. It seemed fitting considering it was a holiday and my mom was here to celebrate with us. It was also a prelude to our big family Boxing Day meal. We decided to offer him green beans, carrots, ham, a bit of cheesy potatoes, and a roll. He also had a new sippy cup with some water.

Here is our photographic evidence...


My big boy in his high chair, clearly excited to be joining the family for dinner.


"You mean this is all for me!?"


He went for the ham first.


He loved his roll the most.


"Forget these cheesy potatoes, I want my ham."


Trying out his sippy cup.

The whole thing was very positive and Sebastian was happy the whole time. He didn't gag at all. He preferred the ham and roll over everything else, though I don't know if he ingested any of either of them. He must have eaten some green beans because I found the evidence of a bite in his diaper today.

The following two days, were also good with Sebastian trying new foods such as avocado (meh), chicken (yum!), asparagus (thumbs up), cucumber (gimmie more), and lettuce (not a fan).

I'm so proud of him. Thumbs up for BLW.

She Gave Me a Gift

Something happened today that helped my heart just a little bit.

My grandmother was from Michigan. She grew up the youngest in a large family on a farm. She moved to California with my Grandfather after the war and although she loved California, she missed certain things about Michigan and the sight of snow and cardinals were a couple of them.

When I moved here she always asked me if I saw any cardinals because she loved them so, and even though they are apparently common around here, I never did. My mom said she would also ask her if I had any reported sightings.

This afternoon I took Sebastian out into the snow for the first time. I figured it would be a fitting goodbye, being out in the snow. We made a snow angel for her and then came inside.





I looked out into our backyard and asked her to watch over us and about 30 seconds later two cardinals, a male and female, flew into our yard and onto a tree outside the window. I can't help but think it was my Grammy and Pompy, together again after all these years, showing me they we indeed watching over us.

I'll Love You Forever

This morning one of my biggest supporters and undoubtedly one of the most special people in my life passed away. It was a day I was dreading and a day I didn't expect, not yet anyway.

My Grammy, Evadene Brooks, died this morning after a fit of characteristic stubbornness. She had collapsed this morning and refused to go to the hospital. She died shortly thereafter. She would have wanted it that way as she always hated being in the hospital ("their food is terrible!"). When my mom called to tell me it was if a little piece of me died.

My grandma, "Grammy" named by my older cousin, was quite the matriarch, a matriarch of a family of all women. She was always so very loving towards me but also a bit of a battle-ax when it came to others. If she she didn't like something, you'd hear about it.

A majority of my childhood was spent either at her house or with my grandparents over to ours. Dinners were always a special time except for the odd meal here or there where I or my cousins would pull the ol' food in the napkin trick. She never caught on or at least never acted like she did. We spent countless hours taking walks and going to the beach to have picnics. We played in her backyard climbing trees and I loved dancing for her. When I started teaching Sunday School and working at her church nursery we would spend every Sunday together. That's a lot of dedication to cart a sleepy teenager to church every Sunday. My mom and I even lived with her for 6 months while she recovered from knee replacement surgery. Three generations of women in one house was like a battle royal. My poor mom. It was us against her for sure.

As I got older my grandmother continued to be one of my biggest supporters and I always knew I had her unfaltering love. Life has a way of keeping you busy and even though we lived 15 min from each other, I didn't get to see her as often as I would have liked. That killed me because she noticable loved us coming over. I regret we didn't put things aside and go see her more often.

Her health had been bad for quite a few years and we always thought she may not make it too much longer. Part of me knew she wanted to stick around to see me have a child. It had been a long wait. I wear an Uncommon Thread bracelet which was given to me by a friend during my infertility struggles and she was the only person to ask me what the bracelet meant. She knew we were struggling and was beyond thrilled when told her I was pregnant. Now that I think about it, it was about a year ago.

She loved Sebastian. We would go over and visit her and she would hold him for a little while until she felt she was too shakey to continue.

Saying goodbye to her for the last time, before we moved, was terrible. She kept hugging me and telling Sebastian and me that she loved us. She also gave me a Loonie that she had saved in her desk for years (why, I don't know)and gave it to me for good luck.

The last time we saw her would have been three months tomorrow. For three months she was so far away and now I'll never get to see her on this earth again. I just have to have faith that we will be together again. All of us, my beloved Grammy and my beloved Pompy.

I love you Grammy. I am glad you are no longer hurting. I hope you are enjoying a new life with Pompy and having the best food ever. You will be so very missed for the rest of my days.

Time to Lock Up the Electronics and Other Silly Sebastian Happenings

My kid is going to be one of those kids who takes apart Mommy and Daddy's DVD player and cell phones. I can see it already.

We are considering getting him a dummy remote because he love, love, loves our TV remote. He'll just stare at it and lean out of our arms to try and get it. I don't know how I feel about that.

He seems sort of bored with his toys in general, like he needs more stimulation though I don't know what that could be at 5 months (on Thursday). He can't sit up on his own yet so it's not like he can play with some sorts of toys yet.

Not that kids need tons of fancy toys anyway, right? Sunday, we had Alex's mom over for dinner and afterwards Alex, his mom, and I played Rummy Cube. Sebastian switched off from being on my lap to his dad's. At one point I was drinking out of my water bottle and he tried so hard to rip it out of my hands. Once I finished with it I let him have the bottle and he played with it for a good 45 minutes. He'd chew on it, stick the opening in his mouth like he was going to try drinking out of it, and ripping the label off. He actually got the whole label off!





Another occurrence that makes me fear for our gadgets besides how manipulative (in the motor skills way) he is, is how smart he seems to be.

He already knows how to remove my nursing pads and will do so sometimes when he wants to nurse. Last night as Alex and I sat on the couch watching House, Sebastian started trying to undo my nursing tank. He sat there staring intensely at it, making his old man working/thinking sounds of "Ehhhhhhhhhhhh". After he couldn't get the right one undone he started in on the left one. Poor little guy, he just doesn't have the fine motor skills.... yet. Heh. We just about died.

Oh and we have two teeth!