Baby Food

   Last night we had stuffed acorn squash a cranberry sauce for dinner(one of my very favorite fall recipes). I had Ezra on my lap while we were eating and I decided to give him a little taste of the acorn squash(mostly because I just wanted to see what he would do). Most babies(in my experience) when introduced to solid food for the first time either spit the food right out and look at you like you are insane to have put something so strange and obviously inedible in their mouth or choke and gag and look at you like you are trying to kill them. Ezra(my 4 1/2 month old 17 pound chunk of love) looked at me like I had been holding out on him for 4 1/2 long months and gobbled it right up. He is technically another month and a half a way from starting solid food so I only gave him about 2 teaspoons worth and then stopped(even though he would have very happily kept eating it up). This all happened at the dinner table in front of the other kids who thought this was the most exciting and fascinating spectacle ever... especially after Roger said, "Is he really ready for that? You are going to regret that the next time he poops.".  That, of course, opened up the subject of poop, which(as mentioned before) is a favorite dinner time subject at my house. Cute messy babies and poop talk.... what better diner time entertainment could you ask for?

WARNING: If you do not want to read about baby poop.... skip to the next paragraph!

   In less than an hour our dear little baby provided the forewarned "poop of regret". I had no idea that 2 teaspoons of anything could produce such an effect... but it did. By the time I got the baby up to his room to change his diaper(and all of his clothes) the other 4 children had all gathered around to stare in amazement and disgust at the volume of poop that had come out of their seemingly innocent baby brother. As I stripped and scrubbed poop off of Ezra(from his waist to his toes!)the kids stood around making disgusted noises and providing commentary all the while. 

   Even though the Ezra's first solid food experience ended in a bit of a "poop-tastrophe", I am now getting very excited at the new adventure that is just around the corner... BABY FOOD MAKING! Making home-made food is one of my favorite things about having a baby. Call me crazy, but I have done it for all the kids and I really enjoy it. To be quite honest, I like making the food way more than I like the process of actually feeding it to the baby(which is usually a really messy and labor intensive process from start to finish). I made baby food for the first time when Isabella was a baby when a friend convinced me to give it a try.  I thought for sure it was going to be extremely difficult and time consuming but it is actually as easy as making a smoothie and takes about as long(especially if you use left over cooked veggies like I tend to do). There is something extremely rewarding about throwing a bunch of random vegetables into a blender and magically turning it into cute little cubes of baby food yumminess.

   All that to say, I could not resist making a small batch of baby food today. I used one left over acorn squash and a half a bag of fresh spinach and now I have 3 little freezer bags of baby food waiting in the freezer when Ez is ready for them. It will be a month or so before he really gets to begin eating solid food but I figure it is a good habit to get into and having a small stockpile when he does begin will give me a bit of a head start(and something tells me that my chunky little baby is going to go through it fairly fast!).

*NOTE*

   If you are interested in making your own baby food I recommend this book. It is VERY thorough and I have found it endlessly helpful over the years.