The End of Jars

This morning Ellie’s primary caregiver at daycare mentioned to me that they were beginning to have trouble feeding Ellie with a spoon. Apparently the little rebel has been swatting at it and prefers to finger feed herself. The nerve! She does great with cheese, raspberries, blueberries, waffles, Cheerios. I could go on and on (as I’ve mentioned before, the girl enjoys eating). The one thing she will take on a spoon no problem is yogurt. She adores yogurt. She sees it and she shrieks and shakes. This baby must have the cleanest, most in balance G.I. tract on the planet. By the way, the caregiver told me that yesterday Ellie saw her bowl of yogurt and said "Yeah" which I think is her official first word.

I asked the caregiver, when do babies stop eating baby food? She said between nine and twelve months most babies begin to eat mostly finger food.

Oh. Once again, the first time mom thing kicks in. I seem to recall that Leo ate baby food for a long time. But I also thing I have been clinging to the jar food thing out of convenience. Leo did not attend daycare until much later. With him I had a lot more time to plan/cook meals. I mean I made my own baby food for him if that tells you what my schedule was like during his babyhood. It’s so much easier to throw a jar of fruit and a jar of veg into Ellie’s bag (along with string cheese, yogurt, a waffle and cut fruit). I know if she’s getting two jars a day she’s getting A Meal. Also, I do much better with feeding both of them at home. It's hard to get creative when packing lunches. I find myself on auto-pilot. For Leo it's frozen Trader Joe's cheese pizzas. Frozen waffles. Alternating days of Veggie Booty and Veggy sticks. Cut apple. I know there is more out there.

And did I mention I just bought two cases of Earth’s Best?

I asked the caregiver what I should start sending instead of jars (it’s when I ask questions like this that I feel like a complete Mom Moron). She rattled off a whole list: elbow macaroni, cheese sandwiches (as a kid I think I lived on cheese sandwiches for a good five years), cream cheese and jelly sandwiches (yum!), chicken nuggets (ugh). And I know, I know, at this point she can pretty much eat what we eat.

I’ll try to use up the aforementioned two cases of baby food I bought (they are probably sitting on my porch as we speak, ordered from Diapers.com. I had a coupon--hey-for those interested it’s $10 off and free shipping on orders of $50 or more-code: cookie2). I am trying a new diaper, Nature Babycare-in order to get the free shipping I had to spend at least $50. Has anyone tried Nature Babycare? Liked them? They supposedly break down more efficiently than other diapers and don’t use the harsh chemicals.

I guess I need to start getting a bit more creative with Ellie food-wise. For someone who loves to cook as much as I do I feel like Leo eats too much of the same thing. Fish sticks. Scrambled eggs. Waffles. Last night I got him to eat some vegetable dyed pasta with butter and Parm (who lives the life?) but only if I clapped and said “yay” every time he took a bite. Seriously. If I didn’t clap he would wave his hand at me as if to say Hello? Aren’t you forgetting something? Ellie tried some of the pasta but she wasn’t all that interested.

I see a trip to Trader Joe’s in my future this weekend. I needed to go anyway.