And the Monkey is VERY close to crawling. It's funny to watch him rise up on all fours, rock a little in place, straighten his legs, bend them and transfer his weight from one leg to another, even - on a couple of occasions - pull both his knees forward. But the concept of the crawl as a method of forward movement still eludes him. Both his parents watch his calisthenics routine with bated breath: Will this be the moment?! What about now?! As far as the Monkey is concerned, he's just stretching his hamstrings a bit, exercising his legs, doing some push-ups, and has no idea about what's in store once he figures it out. Or DOES he?
After the gabbling he did at Christmas, he basically clammed up - except for some uvular trilling which he would do for half hour stretches. He'd lie on his back and gargle cheerfully, trying out variations in pitch and volume. Oh and clicking. He LOVED to click - mostly the "tsk tsk" type of noise, but occasionally the 'tock tock' one as well (for the linguists, I'm talking about alveolar and retroflex clicks ;) ). However, in the last 2 days, he's re-discovered his babbling - lots of 'mama', 'wawa', 'baba' noises, and every variant in-between.
But, I digress. On to today's topic. All about food. The Monkey now eats breakfast and dinner regularly (we still give him formula throughout the day, though I'm thinking that moving on to some kind of lunch might not be a bad idea). After my first brief foray into baby-lead weaning, I had a freak-out when he bit off a huge chunk of carrot (cooked, I hasten to add), and I sat there watching him anxiously to see what he'd do with it. In the end, the suspense of 'will he/won't he' was far too much for me, so I've gone back to spoon-feeding him various mushes. It's a lot cleaner this way as well, once I taught the Monkey to keep his grabby hands out of the way. I read the literature, bought the various non-allergenic veggies, pureed them, stuck them in ice-cube trays and froze them, with the idea that I could throw together a quick meal with a cube of this, and a cube of that.
If you've had a child any time in the last 5 years or so, no doubt you'll have been inundated with information on which foods should be avoided, and which are ok with respect to allergic reactions. Well, we had all that, and then we read this article - which states (if you can't be bothered to read it), that delaying weaning your child until 6 months (well, exclusively breast-feeding them, in fact), might increase incidences of iron deficiency, allergic responses to things like nuts, and coeliac disease in later life. Really, you can't win!
So, we decided to feed the Monkey peanut butter, and interestedly watched the reaction ...
Given that this is the reaction we get after introducing any new food, we weren't particularly concerned. And indeed the Monkey was fine after being dosed with peanuts on successive nights. We've also fed him scrambled eggs (whites and all!), and no adverse reactions. Some might feel we're being a little cavalier towards the health of our first-born, but I contend that if you slavishly follow ANY literature, you'll no doubt find that you were wrong all along anyway, so you may as well take what information you can (peanuts CAN cause allergic reactions), and then go about your business as you feel comfortable.
Anyway, I was just going to finish up with some of the more eclectic food mixes the Monkey has had, due to parental inventiveness (Hubs) or laziness (me).
- banana, cinnamon and vanilla
- spinach, tomato, pumpkin, avocado and garam masala
- sweet potato, banana, nutmeg
- avocado and banana
- bolognese (inc lamb, onion, garlic, carrot, tomato), and applesauce
All I have to say is: don't knock 'em till you've tried 'em!
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