Grubbs n Critters

February 19, 2011

Baby-Proofing

I cannot believe how mobile Spud has become these days. While she can’t do a proper crawl just yet, she is able to inch her way around; taking a mere 2 minutes from the other end of the mat to creep herself up to me when I’m about 3 meters away and sitting on the other side of the mat.

While putting “obstacles” in her way (i.e. stuff toys, pillows and more pillows amongst other things), might just slow her down a little, she is still determined to get to “the other side”. In fact, she had seemed more fuelled up with an even bigger determination when she saw those obstacles in her way, and showing no signs of slowing down whatsoever!

So quick she has become when it comes to inching towards me that it is now almost an impossible task for me to pump and mind her at the same time. Unlike before where she was still pretty much stuck to one spot, now the little imp will not only be impelled to inch herself to me. At the same time, she keeps on grabbing my pump unit or tug the tubing of the pump quite strongly that it just comes off in her hand!

She also hardly ever stays in the same spot in one minute, making me super convinced that she should and could never be left alone on the floor without any supervision. She basically is reaching out for anything and everything now. Just look at her painstakingly going on all fours, trying to get herself to places or trying to chase the cats.

We have recently lowered her bed, get the apartment to replace our nice black glass table, remove the candle-holders and what nots off the table, as well as doing a little bit of baby proofing — starting with boxing up the electrical sockets!

Judging from the child-proofing list and the Ultimate Guide to Childproofing I was reading about, and at the risk of me sounding like a paranoid nutter, I guess we better start getting on it real soon. We still have a long way to go, and this is only the introductory stage of baby-proofing our home! Gasp!!!

Starting on solids

Category: Baby Food

Starting Spud on solids felt like one of the more exciting moments to break the mundane routine of just feeding her breast milk and more breast milk. (which, for me means pump, pump and more pumping!).

As soon as she hit 5 months old, I just could not wait to get that first spoonful of solid into her tiny little mouth, hoping that she too, will be a foodie like her parents.

Given my penchant for cooking, I was more than happy to prepare home-made food with organic ingredients as recommended by various sources. For weeks now, I have enjoyed boiling, steaming, mashing, pureeing and then put them in the ice-cube trays to be frozen. It does make me wonder though how long the novelty of preparing food for Spud will last!

So far, Spud has been fed with carrots, taters, sweet potatoes, brown rice, broccoli, mangoes, papayas and apples. All are pureed. Applying the 4 day rule as recommended, we only gave her new food after every four days. By now, we are able to mix and match them as her stomach has not shown any signs of distress.

With the exception of papaya, potatoes and sometimes broccoli, it seems like she can get use to solids. She especially loves mangoes, carrots and apples and will usually open up her mouth willingly. Even when she was done being fed, she would continue to open her mouth wide as if to ask for more!

It is exciting to watch her taking in the solids. In the meantime, I’m very much looking forward to expose her palate to more food variety. And, until I get uber-lazy, I’ll continue with home-prepared baby foods just because I enjoy doing it.

Apparently we can start introducing chicken when she hits 7 months…and that is just a few weeks from now. Exciting, right!

Baby-food recipes…here I come!

* Image from Google Images