Introducing Food

On the third Monday of the month we go to our midwife's house for Mother's Circle. We take a dish to share and have a potluck lunch. Today we had so much fruit on hand that we took a pretty fruit plate of sliced banana, rasberries, blueberries, and nectarine. The plate was garnished with some lettuce from our garden. With the variety it looked bright and cheery and didn't even take much fruit to fill it. There was a bit left-over which made me feel that I had made enough.  We meet with other mama's and little ones to discuss raising our babies. There are anywhere from 10 to 20 mommies there. When weather permits we sit on blankets under a big tree on the lawn. I share a different world-view from most of them, but I learn a lot regarding healthcare, cloth-diapering, nursing into toddlerhood and many other things that are of great interest to me. We always have a fun time. I especially enjoy watching so many young women sitting around together, comfortably nursing babies.
Sabin still gets his primary source of nutrition through nursing and we are both happy about the situation. We have begun the transition toward "solid" food. But so far the trip is slow and easy. Once he turned a year old I introduced him to banana, avocado, carrots, and sweet potato - mashed of course - one at a time just like you would for a 6 month old. All of which he promptly spit out in disgust.  Funny how this same child has had no qualms about putting dirt, sticks, grass, or dog food into his mouth. We continued to offer these same foods.
About two or three weeks after the first introduction I was eating scrambled egg for breakfast while Sabin finger painted with his banana. He started pointing at my eggs and leaning toward them all in a fuss. I was a little uncertain. This was not on my list of safe foods. I figured he would just spit it out, so I gave him a small bite. To my surprise he gobbled it up and wanted more. He ate about half a teaspoon during our breakfast. I figured I may as well add eggs to my "safe list"...well.... actually... I added many foods to my safe list that day. And it seemed a door opened for my little boy who began trying lots of foods.
We stick with mostly fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables. I also feed him breads of whole grains that I have made myself and long grain brown rice. We don't eat many sugary foods in our home. Our diet became even more healthy because Sabin eats what we eat. He has had a few tastes of ice cream over the past month, but prefers his bites to be very tiny. As a matter of fact, he prefers all his bites to be quite tiny and will spit them out if they are more than the size of half a pea.  I do not feed him meats yet, neither do I give him foods that are highly processed, or contain high fructose corn syrup.
Over the past few weeks he has built up quite an assortment of foods to enjoy including quite the va riety of vegetables (among them cooked spinach and green beans), legumes, and several fruits. Right now his favorites include scrambled egg, broccoli, and rasberries.






Tonight for dinner we had salad and pasta. We eat quite a few types of salad when it is really hot outside. Both Joe and I enjoyed this. Tonight we had greens from our garden. They were so full of flavor. I added starwberry, banana, sunflower seeds, and crushed cashew pieces with poppyseed dressing. Sabin tried his first veggie pasta, which he really liked. He also had some strawberry. We tried banana again, but he still will not eat it.