9 Month Foods

Cloth diapers are washed, chicken is baking, Jackson is napping and I am blogging (I should be steaming the yams but... I need a break). As much as I have complained about making Jackson's baby food, I am pretty proud of myself for sticking with it (not that I have much choice). I'm extremely proud in how healthy he eats. I love the fact that I don't have to worry about what preservatives are in his food. We just watched the documentary Forks over Knives, that will get you thinking. It also gives him a great variety of food and I think it saves money (I haven't sat down and calculated it but I'm sure it does). I really do like making it, especially now that he is napping and doing independent play. With this being said, I do not think that what we are doing is "better" it just works for us. So if you feed the jar stuff, I think that's great (you have more time to play and drink coffee :) )! There are pros and cons to everything and us mommies shouldn't judge other mommies!

When you hit the 9 month food mark things get a little tricky. 1. Baby can now have stage 3 and 2. You can start doing more finger foods that are soft. At this stage you aren't quite to the point of "here have what we eat" because they don't have a lot of teeth and are still learning to chew. There is also that list of "no" they can't have this and that yet.

Once we hit this stage I remember thinking ok well now what? Here is our meal plan (obviously you should consult your DR about foods etc):
*Note everything is cut up in small pieces

Breakfast: Homemade frozen waffles (no butter, no syrup) or oatmeal (he really is not a fan of it but we still give it a go every once in a while), Fruits (banana, blueberry, raspberry, peach, pear) or puree fruit (pears, grapes)

Lunch: Lunch meat (organic- I know that lunch meat isn't the best for you so I stick with the $5.00 organic kind) or beans (he hates beans but we have tried them), rice, bell peppers/avocado/ green beans, fruit, and we just started sandwich bread (homemade) torn in small pieces

Snack: Teething biscuit, puree fruit in a pouch- when fruit starts ripening too fast I puree and freeze in the pouches. He loves pouches! This also gives me one meal that I don't have to sweep the floor. Whew.

These things are great! $20.00 for four but you can reuse them/freeze. We are obsessed! It's so easy to travel with them- freeze them and then stick them in the diaper bag to thaw out. It can be a little slushy/smoothie. They are hard to clean but you can stick them in the dishwasher. I hand clean them and then sometimes stick them in the dishwasher to sterilize. 

These are the teething biscuits we get: Healthy Times. They are egg/diary/soy free and organic! I have been buying them at Native Sun or diapers.com but I just found on Amazon that they sell them in bulk! These things smell bad but Jackson loves them. I mean loves them. I hate them because they are super messy and he bites big chunks off but hey whatever. 

Dinner: Puree sweet potatoes and chicken with rice (I make it like a stage 3 food now), green beans, sometimes a fruit again

• We have a lot of fruit because we are still testing out the veggies 
• Soon we will be trying: peas, barley, pancakes, sun butter, tomatoes, kiwi, fish
• I would like to try hummus with pita bread (if I can make one egg free)
• Obviously if he could have cheese and dairy that would be added in as well.
• Eggs would be such an awesome food to have at this stage if Jackson wasn't allergic to them
• Jackson is finger feeding himself all the foods except purees
• I also keep a straw cup of formula or water on his tray that he will drink through out the meals
• We have tried pasta but he didn't really like it.. we will be trying that again when I can add a sauce to it

It's a work in progress but with trying only one food at a time things are slow! I hope this gave you some food ideas. 

4th of July 2013

I was looking for the 2012 post but I guess I didn't blog about it! This year was so much fun having Jackson actually here.

We (Jamie and I) started our day with red velvet pancakes (red, white, and blue). They were delicious!

After Jackson's long morning nap, we feed him lunch, packed up our stuff, and headed to the beach!

Once we got to the beach condo, Jamie and I ate lunch. I made this fantastic chicken salad! Finally we planted ourselves on the beach. We spent all afternoon playing in the sand, going in the water, and having a few cocktails.

After we were all beached out, we grilled out at the condo and then headed home. Baby boy was EXHAUSTED. He fell asleep in the car. Heck we fell asleep super early too. So no fireworks this year but maybe next!

I hope everyone had a fantastic 4th!

10 months!

Jackson,
      Another month has flown by!! I can't even figure out what happened this month it went so fast. The beginning of the month you seemed to be boycotting the second nap and now you are sleeping like a champ. Dare I say you might be outgrowing this hatred of sleep? Of course you did just cry for an HOUR before you fell asleep... just about drove me mad. Honestly, if I never had to put you to sleep life would be pretty much perfect.  But daddy and I are starting to be tougher on the sleep thing after another awful trip of no sleep. And the first two nights of our tough love you have slept until 6:30!!!!!! Whew. Enough about sleep.
       This month you started giving me the best bear hugs and pats on the back.. I am about die with all the sweetness. I can't get enough. We started cuddling in the rocker every morning and we pet Stella. You then tell me all sorts of things and give more bear hugs. It's my favorite part of the day! You also love to crawl up in my lap for more hugs and kisses.
         You are now the biggest daddy's boy ever. I hate it. No I don't really but it makes me a little sad. If daddy is holding you, you do NOT want mommy. I think it's because you don't spend as much time with daddy so you are soaking it all up. I knew this would happen eventually.

Milestones:

• Standing with one hand all the time, brief periods of no hands!
• Walking with our hands
• Giving high fives
• Imitating sounds
• First trip to the aquarium and you loved it! First trip to Atlanta
• Love: Raspberries!! And waffles now.
• Hate: broccoli, carrots
• Indifferent: rice, peppers, lunch meat
• I think that's it?

Health: Starting COW's milk formula. It seems to be going ok. Other than that healthy!! 

I can't wait to see what next month brings!! Maybe walking?

Baby Proofing/Baby Gate Review

They (the books not your friends) say you should baby proof before you even have the baby and well that's probably pretty good advice. Think about it for a second... once your baby starts moving (rolling, crawling, walking) you have nothing, then you go out and buy everything only to realize a. the XYZ doesn't fit or work b. the baby can get hurt before you have time to get to the store to replace everything you bought. Jackson didn't ever get hurt before we had everything up but we had a ton of close calls. Like the time he ripped his baby monitor out of the wall or when he removed the air purifier from it's plug, computer plugs, lamps, etc. I think our nanny was about to have a heart attack for the two months it took us to finally get everything done (and I don't blame her!).

We didn't do any of this the right way so here is how we should have done it:
1. Make a list of everything that needs to be baby proofed and MEASURE (I did suggest this to Jamie and he vetoed it for the record).
2. Research the baby gates.. or read what I wrote because I def. would have picked different ones.
3. You need plug covers, cabinet locks, gates, and corner covers, and if you have a fireplace lord help you :) We have one and I just put a ton of blankets and corner things on it. I was not willing to pay $200 to baby proof it. We also keep an eye on him. As far as outlet covers and cabinet locks, you should research those, we just used the ones someone gave us.
4. Baby proof the MONITOR immediately. And it's cord! Babies love cords. Apparently they love danger. Honestly I would do this one first. We bought the safety first outlet cover so you can plug in the monitor- even if you think your baby can't reach the outlet they can. Trust me. Then we hung the monitor on the wall and used the sticky things that came with it to hide the cord. We had to use an extension cord for the plug to work with the cover. If you are thinking of buying a shelf to put your monitor on....test it first. I bought two shelves and it just will never work.

5. Put up all your lamps, just eliminate them. Along with the coffee table or buy a soft one.

Now for the gate review:

*** ONLY BUY GATES THAT HAVE TO BE ATTACHED WITH SCREWS INTO THE WALL*** I know you don't want to mess up your house BUT the pressure ones really won't hold a strong baby from using it to jump, climb, and scream like a monkey in a cage (true story). Jackson has already pulled 1 gate down and has been working on another.

1. Summer Infant Sure & Secure™ Extra Tall Walk-Thru Safety Gate. Don't buy it. It's a pressure gate and you have to use two hands to open it. Who has two hands with a baby?! Although it looks nice.

2. Munchkin Gate: It's cheap, it works for a room you never go in or we put it at the bottom of the stairs because we never go up there, it's really hard to put back in place if you take it down (always takes two people), Jackson can rip this one off the wall, it looks decent.

3. Summer Infant Sure And Secure Custom Fit Gate: THE WINNER! Best gate ever. It's soft so when they face plant into them it's ok. It attaches to the wall so it's not going anywhere. It's extra long or you can make it short. You can open it with ONE hand. Genius. Of course it is much more expensive than all the others.

4. Carlson 0930PW Extra-Wide Walk-Thru Gate with Pet Door, White: We got this one for a friend and it works really well for the cats, however, Jackson has pull this one off the door frame. It's also really hard to open. BUT it's really the only option as far as cat doors goes. 

1st Birthday List

Jackson is almost 10 months old which means his birthday is 2 months away! Can you believe it? I have some what started planning... maybe getting some ideas in my head... ok so I'm really close on picking out his outfit for the party and pictures (which I need to schedule). But I have started thinking of his birthday wish list.

1. Wagon: This one is pretty pricey so this will probably be our gift to him but even Jamie is excited about this one.

2. Chair: The anywhere chair from pottery barn. I mean he HAS to have one. How cute would he be sitting on (ok climbing all over) one of these bad boys? Of course his name has to be on it. Duh. I can't decide which one I like better: the navy or the surf print? I'm leaning towards navy.

3. Grill: Every man has to have a grill and Jackson is no different. I actually thought of this because girls have pretend kitchens and pretend play is very important! Instead of a kitchen he can have a grill.

4. Teepee or play tent: He LOVES the fort I built him but it does make our house look really messy and he's about to wack his head on the pool table if he gets any taller. I would love a Teepee! I found this one on Etsy. Cute ones are hard to find and they are pricey so I'm not willing to buy something I don't like the look. And yes you can DYI these but... have you met my husband? And not to mention I'm not very good at DYI and it would probably look like crap and then we would spend more money buying a good one. 

A close second:

I'm not so sure about the firehouse. It's cute but ehh if we had a girl this wouldn't really work.. we also don't have a play room so this would be hanging out in the living room. 

The realistic birthday list: 

1. Board Books (you can never have too many books!)

2. AGE APPROPRIATE TOYS- 12-24 months please. I really hate storing toys he can't use because we don't have a lot of room and then I forget about them. Obviously if they say 3 years but you think he would still enjoy it that's totally fine but you have to be careful a lot of things have very small pieces. He loves to put things in his mouth.. I know the grill says 3 years.. that's my exception :)

3. Trucks/Cars/Trains/Planes

4. Absolutely no more balls. We have about a zillion and he loves them but we are bursting at the seams with balls. They are everywhere. Everywhere. The stroller, under the couch, in the cat dish, under the bed. Ok except for the Elephant Pop Up Toy that one I would make an exception for.. and we obviously wouldn't complain about getting balls.. heck I'm sure Jackson would be thrilled.. I need to figure out a storage system for balls... PINTEREST.

5. Clothes- we always need clothes and pajamas!

Whoohoo now time to party plan! I should maybe order his outfit? Set a date? Ohh the list continues..

Cloth Diapering Whoops

Baby butt! This is such a hippy picture: cloth diaper and amber necklace :)

Yes, we are still cloth diapering! But of course, I just jumped right into it without really reading up on it so I've made some mistakes.

1. Do not use diaper cream with cloth diapers even if Dr. Google says you can use a little. It ruins them which creates more of a diaper rash. Now that we have most of the food allergies figured out (although occasionally we will still get a diaper rash from food), I started looking into the diapers.. and after researching (googling) I found out that I was creating a diaper rash from:
a. Using diaper cream
b. Using my HE washer to wash cloth diapers

Solution:
1. Strip the diapers (I would google this but basically you add Dawn soap and bleach with an extra rinse)
2. Use disposable diapers with diaper cream to get rid of the rash- VERY IMPORTANT! You might only need to use one disposable and it clears but it beats messing around and making everything worse. We do use disposables at night now and I put some cream on just for maintenance.
3. For HE washers:

• Add a wet towel to the wash
• Do an extra extra cycle (3 cycles)
• Add bleach to one cycle
• Wash less diapers in each load

*I'm still working with this one. I'm pretty consistent on the three cycles right now but I would rather just add a wet towel to the wash. And the second Jackson looks like he might be getting a rash I put bleach in the cycle. 

I will admit I was so ANNOYED that my cloth diapers were causing the rash.. until I figured out that I was causing it. Basically I took a week off messing around trying to figure it all out but now we are good. During that week off I did think wow disposables are so easy and then I though wow what I waste of $$$! hahah I would much rather spend that money on toys or clothes for Jackson! We are getting close to a year and I really think my new goal will be to use them until he is potty trained. I plan on potty training him early.. if possible. Right now we have at least broken even in our cloth diapering investment. Going forward we will be saving more and more with cloth diapering. 

*I should really say if you are working full time, I think cloth diapering would be really hard (time consuming). Now that I am only working two days it's extremely easy. And I started AFTER the newborn stage which I will probably do again with the next one.

9 Month Schedule

Babies schedules change about every three months- 0-3 (sleep, eat, poop), 3-6 (4 naps), 6-9 (3 naps), and now 9-12 we are down to two naps. I thought I would share our 9 month schedule, although I wish it was a little different, it works.

My sweet boy!! Attacking the camera (probably at 5am :) )

5:00am 

Jackson is awake GRR. He has to stay in his crib until 6... we are trying to get him to sleep until 6. And no he isn't hungry at 5 trust me. Half the time he isn't hungry at 6.

6:00am

Eat Breakfast

1/4 waffle (dairy, soy, egg free), fruit, and 6 oz formula

6:30-8:00am

Play, crawl around the house or play in the pack n play while we get ready for work

8:00ish

Nap. 

I have tried to push this to 9 but it just doesn't work. He starts melting down at 8.

9:30 

He is up! Time to play

10:00 

Eat Lunch

1 slice of turkey lunch meat (organic no soy), fruit, veggie, 6 oz milk

10:30-12:30ish

Play, Swim Lessons or My Gym, Running Errands

12:30ish

Nap.

Again we have tried to push this back but it just depends on the day. By 1:00 he is usually in melt down mode. Sleeps for 30 minutes to 1 hour and a half

2:00

Snack

"Smoothie" Puree fruit in a pouch, teething biscuit, 6 oz formula

2:30-5:00

Play time, go for a walk, go to the park, run errands, etc.

5:00 

Dinner

Puree chicken, sweet potatoes, rice, fruit, water

6:00 

Bottle 6 oz milk and start the bedtime routine (bath, story, lights out, insert crying)

6:30-7ish

Bed time 

And NO if we push bedtime later he does NOT sleep later. Actually we figured if he gets in bed by 6:30 he usually sleeps the best. The ped said he should be sleeping 12 hours!!!! Ugh. Maybe when he's 16?

Ideally I would like him to wake at 6, nap at 9 and 1 but it is what it is. Besides the 5am wakeup call it's been working really well. I have attempted to take pictures as a "day in the life post" but I always forget! hahaha I'm not quite sure how people do it. I get in our routine and poof the thought it gone.