All parents have the highest of aspirations for their children.
Doctor, teacher, President of the United States… but the next Kobayashi?
If fate were decided by talent and talent was determined at the age of eight months, then my daughter definitely has a shot at winning international titles in competitive eating.
She greedily gobbles up all of her dinner, grabs a whole chicken leg from mine, and will still eye her big brother’s plate for more… and she doesn’t even have teeth yet!
Barely over 50th percentile at her last check-up, she’s doing her best to catch up one chubby fistful of Cheerios at a time. Honestly, I don’t even know where she puts it in her tiny little frame!
It’s been tough to keep up with her demands, which is why I was thrilled to be given a chance to write about Annabel Karmel’s Top 100 Baby Purees and Top 100 Finger Foods for the Silicon Valley Moms Blog.
Getting my daughter to try new and adventurous tastes is clearly NOT an issue for me. My biggest problem is knowing what I can feed her… As in, what’s “allowed”?
You’d think I would know all that already, having had an older child and all. Except that my son never had home-made baby food.
Yeah. I’m sure this will somehow play into a future laundry list of how I loved one child more than the other blah, blah, blah… Homemade baby food or not, he will always have three years and four months of blissful “only child”-hood on his little sister. So there!
In the throes of new motherhood (and for a short while, working motherhood), I felt like I had enough on my plate. The last thing I wanted was to spend my Sunday afternoons pureeing vegetables and neatly portioning them out into ice cube trays.
This is not to say that I would have been opposed to the idea. After all, I was pretty strict about which types of jarred foods he ate. And, once upon a simpler time, I did enjoy cooking. Making my own baby food wouldn’t have been such a leap.
However, an allergy scare early on turned me off the idea entirely. A stern reprimand from our pediatrician made me paranoid about trying anything “different” or “new”. So I stuck with what was considered tried and true. (read: safe and boring)
Knowing what I know now, I wish I had at least tried to make Fillet of Fish with Orange Sauce or Tomato Cauliflower and Carrot with Basil for my son. I’m sure he would have loved it as much as his sister did when I served it to her for lunch today. Having hand selected and prepped the ingredients myself, I get much more satisfaction from knowing exactly what goes into my kids’ food.
I’m not embarrassed to admit that I used store-bought baby foods because they were convenient and made my life easier. Scout certainly hasn’t suffered because of it. He’s bright, happy, healthy, and not shy about demanding a hummus-broccoli sandwich instead chicken nuggets. (NOW, Mommy!)
I’m more ashamed to admit that I didn’t trust my own instincts when it came to knowing what’s best for my kid.
Disclosure: I received free copies Annabel Karmel’s Top 100 Baby Purees and Top 100 Finger Foods to taste test on my kids and write about for the Silicon Valley Moms Blog. The opinions are my own. You can purchase your copies of Top 100 Finger Foods and Top 100 Baby Purees by Annabel Karmel here.
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I have the baby puree book and it’s fabulous! Unfortunately, the boys have decided they like finger food better, so now I should look at the second book; however, I’ve now decided to try to go back to making family dinners and cutting up into finger foods what we’ve been eating. So far so good.
.-= Heather´s last blog ..Boys Last Synagis Shots and Busy at Work =-.
I think its really important to give babies fresh food too even if you give jars …We dont eat food every day that has a shelf life of over a year and babies grow more rapidly in their first year than at any time in their life and fresh food retais more nutrients than jars. Its easy to mash a banana, avocado or papaya to make nutritous baby food and mashed avocado and banana together was a favourite with my children when they were babies. The recipes in my book are simple to prepare and I have designed them so that you make more than you need and freeze extra portions so you only need to cook a couple of times a week… Regarding allergies unless there is a family history of allergy its important to introduce variety into your babies diet and babies need foods like chicken , meat and fish as iron and essential fatty acids are important for their development. My Chicken Sweet Potato and Apple makes a good introduction to chicken and my Fillet of Flounder with Carrot , Cheese and Tomato makes a delicious introduction to fish . I hope I can encourage more mums to realse that cooking for their baby is easy and very rearding as you know you are giving your baby the best start in life.. Enjoy..Annabel
Hi,
Keep great info poating.