Learning to relax

One of the most important things I've learned from being a mother is that I have to relax, I have to let go, and I have to stop being afraid of messes.

My own mother would argue that I've never been afraid of messes - I left enough lying around when I was young that I shouldn't quell at them now. But there's a difference between leaving books scattered across the couch and letting a 16-month-old pour a carton of goat's milk yoghurt on the kitchen floor. However, that's just what I did.



Being aware that both the floor and the toddler were washable, I tried to sit back and let him just enjoy himself. Every now and again, I would try to remind him to take a bite, but for the most part he was engrossed in dribbling yoghurt onto the floor and himself.



Of course, our resident clean-up crew were standing by, waiting for their chance to dive in. They ended up getting yoghurt-spattered too, but I figured that a wet washcloth would get the worst of it off of them.



I'm sure some of you are absolutely cringing at the idea of letting a toddler smear yoghurt on themselves and the floor. But I've been thinking a lot about experiences in life, and I remember very clearly being young (seven or eight years old) and thinking that there was nothing in life as much fun as creating a really good mud puddle with the hose and then stomping in it slowly and methodically for hours on end, pretending to be Atreyu dragging Artax through the Swamps of Sadness (bonus points if you can remember that film).

And, as I said above, both floor and baby were washable. So I sat back, took photos, and readied the wet towels for the end of the experiment (which, by the way, did not end until he'd smeared the dribbles of yoghurt everywhere, and finished by dumping the remaining inch of yoghurt in the carton all over his legs and diaper).

What things have you learned to be more relaxed about since having a baby?

Raw30: Day 17

One thing I've noticed about this raw journey... while I may not necessarily like everything I make, the Baby Beast certainly does! He never turns down a new flavor, and he usually comes back and asks for more.

Today's creation was a Pineapple Sundae.

You're picturing ice cream with warm pineapple sauce, aren't you? So was I, when I first read the title. Really, I think it ought to have its name changed. Pinapples with Apple Cream would be more appropriate, although perhaps less appealing. (then again, i found the dish not-that-appealing anyway, so i don't suppose the less appealing name would be wrong)


The layers are the Apple Cream and the pineapple/apple mixture.

So, now I have a huge lasagna pan of Pesto Lasagna and a medium-ish Tupperware container of Pineapple Sundaewith Apple Cream. And I like neither. Thank goodness I can put them in the Husbeast's lunch pail and know they will be consumed while he's at work.

One of the things we've talked about, once this 30 day journey is over, is that I'd like to make all the recipes in Alissa's book at least once. (no, this won't be a julie&julia situation... i won't be making one a day. this mommybeast needs a break from daily food prep and blogging!) But I want to sample everything in her book, and frankly, 30 days is not enough to try everything. And I will probably be re-making some of my favorite desserts. I'd like to figure out the Chocolate Turtles; I tried making those last night, but somehow I ended up with some chocolate-glazed walnuts with a big pool of honey/cocoa in the center of the Teflex sheet in the dehydrator. Sigh. I'll be licking the sheet clean later, I imagine.

So, that's it for now. Hopefully tomorrow's food experiment will be moderately better. I'm tired of big messes and big preps for food I don't even much like.

A table for one (small person)

When a large box from Lord Company arrived, I got understandably excited. So did the Baby Beast, but for a totally different reason: huge box in the house? That's just cool!

I rolled it through the house, with the baby trying to manhandle (babyhandle?) it away from me so he could slap it and chew on the corners, but I finally managed to get it opened and unwrapped a pound or so of plastic wrap and an interesting cloth/paper padding and found my absolutely gorgeous wood table and infant chair.



The Baby Beast was surprisingly enthusiastic about his new table and chair once I got them set up. For one thing, they were something new in the house (which is always a reason for celebration; we get a new pot holder and he wants to manipulate it for ten minutes and check all the angles on it); but I think the main draw to him was the fact that here was furniture that was baby-sized! He could stand up next to the table and look over it, and pat it, and drool on it... without being lifted up to it! He could pull his own chair out, and push it around the room, by himself!



This goes along with the Montessori belief that children need child-sized things that they can manipulate themselves. As adults, the world is sized for us. The tables, chairs - really, all the furniture - is sized for large people. To an infant, everything is giant sized and hard to manipulate. Everything feels awkward to them, and they are left feeling somewhat out of place.

High chairs are even more awkward for them, something they have no hope of getting into or out of. Providing furniture sized for them helps them feel less out of place.



Seeing the Baby Beast's obvious enthusiasm for his new table and chair convinced me that it was a wonderful idea.



It has also made baby-led weaning so much easier. Since he's no longer sitting so high up in the air, he isn't doing the typical baby experiments of tossing food off the side of his chair to see what happens. He's been getting into eating with gusto since we've started using his table and chair.




Of course, there is one obvious drawback to him being so close to the floor... he's that much closer to the clean-up crew when he decides he's done.




And he never has any shame about it, either.

Striving toward autonomy

The Baby Beast has never been a fan of being fed... in fact, he regards spoon feeding as something to be distrusted and will glare at any spoon proffered towards him, unless he has seen me eating off of it first.

Luckily, he has managed a lot of finger dexterity. His pincer grip (grabbing between his index finger and thumb) has progressed almost to the point where he never misses (although getting the pincered food into his mouth is another story... that almost never goes quite as smoothly, and I'd say at least 45% of the things that move towards his mouth end up on his bib, his pants, or the floor). And if he can't grab it in his fingers, he'll just put his face down to the table top and eat that way.



No, we don't do a high chair. We used to do, but I found it to be an unbelievable hassle to always wrestle the thing out of the corner and over to the table, take the tray off and get the baby strapped in, put the tray on, put food on the tray... and then have to take him back down in five minutes when he grew tired of eating/playing with his food. We invested in an inflatable booster chair for regular adult chairs (straps onto the back brace and the seat) and it has been a lifesaver. He can sit at the table with us and eat, and he is able to get things himself with only a minimum of tossing on the floor (like I said, 45%. but then, we have the puppy cleaning crew around here).

Since the Baby Beast is so intent on autonomy, I'm planning to invest in a Montessori weaning table in the next couple of weeks. Weaning tables are just what they sound like: tables sized to your infant/toddler meant to make the process of weaning from breast/bottle to solid food as easy as possible.

No, I am not planning on stopping our breastfeeding relationship. The WHO and AAP both recommend breastfeeding a minimum of two years, and as long past that as mother and child are comfortable. And while Maria Montessori believed children should no longer breastfeed past nine months, she and I will just have to agree to disagree on that point.

Here is a photographic example of a weaning table and chair. Once the Baby Beast's arrive, I will certainly include photos.

Why make it so low to the ground? The idea is that your infant/toddler can get into and out of the chair with a minimum of help. Traditional high chairs make the baby completely dependent on an adult to help get them in and out, but the weaning table/chair can be climbed into/out of without and adult lifting the baby.

I operate on the belief that I'm not raising my baby; I'm teaching a person. Thinking in those terms quite often stops me from impinging my own desires on the Baby Beast (i.e. interrupting his play time to cuddle or kiss on him; he approaches me quite often for cuddles, and i am VERY willing to love on him when he asks for it. there's no need to stop him in the middle of his play to kiss him).

It amazes me every day how fast he's growing. It's hard for me to believe he'll be 10 months old in a couple of days. Time isn't marching on - it's flying by.

Let's eat!

I've mentioned before that we're doing child-led weaning... one thing that goes hand-in-hand with that is allowing an infant to start solids when they're ready and not when a label on a jar of pureed vegetables tells you they're ready.

Child- or baby-led weaning is actually the most natural way to start solids with a baby. Very few things adults eat resemble a puree in texture (with the exception of apple sauce, puddings, and custards [and probably others but i'm not going to do an exhaustive list because, well, i don't wanna!]) and when we eat, we eat not only for flavor but for texture. Have you ever eaten stale popcorn, the type that kind of squeaks when you bite it? It tastes the same as fresh, but there's something about the texture that just throws you off.

Presenting babies with a lot of pureed goop isn't a good way to introduce them to the wide and varied world of foods. But it's not just that. Babies aren't just babies: they're people. They have the very natural desire to be the masters of their own destinies, even if that only extends to choosing what to put in their mouths and in what quantity to put it in. Baby-led weaning gives them the opportunity to make their own decisions on how much food to eat and how often to take bites.

Moreover, by not shoving spoons full of goop into their mouths, parents can actually prevent a lot of the 'normal' gagging babies do when switched from smooth to chunky purees. They gag because spooned puree tends to be sucked into the back of the mouth. Allowing them access to whole foods, they can get used to moving bites around in the front of their mouth (basically, learning to chew) before eventually learning to swallow. With purees, they learn to swallow before learning to chew.

I could go on and on, but there are books and plenty of Web sites and forums to cover the topics in detail.

We started the BabyBeast off with a very simple and traditional first food: banana. The difference was, I just handed him half a banana when he was six months old and let him take it from there. He managed just fine, although there was less 'eating' and more 'tasting' and 'smearing' and 'squishing.'



Baby-led weaning is, once again, the most natural approach to parenting. Very few cavemommas had blenders available to puree foods for their infants. When the baby was able to grasp and bite and swallow, that was probably when the baby started eating instead of nursing for all of its nutrition.

Even today, with babies who are extremely prone to allergies (for instance, with a family history of food allergies), pediatricians will recommend not feeding anything but breastmilk or formula for the first 12 months. By their first birthday, most babies have at least their upper and lower incisors, to facilitate biting things (if not chewing things).



The BabyBeast, as I expected, has teeth top and bottom now so he is able to take bites of things even if they end up drooling out of his mouth. He still nurses for 99.999% of his nutrition, and I'm fine with that. We've had a few bites, but he's learning that bites lead to the end of that particular nursing session and is being more careful not to clamp down.

I'm in no rush to get him eating whole meals. He'll reach that milestone whenever he's developmentally ready and not when I think he 'should' reach it. Taking it easy just comes, well, naturally.