Hi there! Happy Saturday!
Our weekend is full of shopping and packing (we’re going on vacation next week!), so while I do my 9th load of laundry, you get to be entertained by some more answers to your questions. Here we go.
Aimee says “I am curious about her transition from pureed food to table food. When did you start that and how did she react to the new textures? I am getting to that point with my son but so far he doesn’t like anything that isn’t pureed.”
Aimee-
We started by introducing Peanut to puffs around 7.5 months. Once she discovered that she could pick food up with her fingers, she pretty much weaned herself off pureed food and would only eat food that she could handle herself. After puffs we gave her bananas, avocado, and some other soft foods. Then came macaroni, cheese (cheese sticks were the best), grilled cheeses, chicken nuggets, tofu, hot dogs, grapes and the list goes on! I found the comments on the post linked above to be super helpful, we well as my favorite baby food blog: http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/

Meghan says “Have you transitioned to a sippy cup yet or are you not concerned because she doesn’t have teeth yet? How was her transition to whole milk? Did the temperature bother her? I am constantly stressed over this because my daughter HATES the sippy cup and loves her bottle. She isn’t quite 12 months yet and so I am trying to plan out how I will transition her to whole milk and eventually, the sippy.”
Meghan-
We are in the very beginning stages of swapping Peanut out for a sippy instead of a bottle. As of right now, that’s not going too well. I do have a post coming up this week with advice from the other readers – it rocks! As for whole milk, we did start the whole milk transition. Right now Peanut is drinking about half breast milk half whole milk mixture, until we run out of breast milk. We are still warming up most of her bottles, but when she’s super impatient, she takes it cold.
Happiness Is… says “1. How in the world do you get Peanut to eat so much variety? I offer Thatcher everything and he will just play with it. Did she do that at first? Is playing with table food the beginning? Feels so wasteful and he literally makes a face if I try to feed it to him.
2. How many kids do you all want? Have you thought about #2? (if this is too personal, I get it!)
3. Do you think you will always work? Any working mom guilt? How do you cope?
4. Has y’alls relationship gotten stronger/better since Peanut? How has it changed?”
Dear Ashley-
Oh boy.
1. We have always given Peanut pretty much whatever we’re eating. I have no idea if she’s a good eater because of what I ate while she was in my belly, if it’s because we introduced her to as many different tastes as possible during the early solid food stages, or if we just lucked out. To be honest, I’m guessing we just lucked out. We do have some good days and some bad days – sometimes Peanut will eat everything from noodles to cheese sticks to tofu to veggies. Other times she will cry until we give her some peas or cheerios.
2. Jon and I want 2 kids – we want the kids to be about 2-3 years apart, but we’re definitely not ready yet. We’ve always talked about having 2 kids and when we finally decided that we were ready for a baby, we knew that we were committing to 2 kids and that they would be 2-3 years apart. After Monday night’s incident though, I’m not sure that my heart can handle another little part of me walking around, bumping into things.
3. Work. Oh work. Yes, I do think that I will always work. Partly because that is the only monetary option, partly because I would be driven insane if I had to stay home with the kids all week long.
The working mom guilt – that’s a tough one. Some days I think about the fact that our daycare sees Peanut for more of her waking hours than we do and that they’re practically raising her. I wonder if Peanut would be happier if she was home with me, following her schedule (which she loves) and getting all of my attention. These are tough days. But most days I’m thankful that I get to work. I love that Peanut has the chance to interact with other kids and adults on a daily basis. I love that she’s learning to socialize and to be more patient with adult attention. Selfishly, I love the feeling when I walk in the office, pour myself a cup of coffee and sit down in my chair. It’s actually relaxing. I also love the thrill of working and my career – the challenge, the socialization, the things I learn every single day. These days I’m happy and balanced.
Cope? I don’t have any good advice here. I just let myself get through the rough days and know that there are better days ahead – days when I’ll feel complete. When I can’t take it any more, I blog. It’s a great outlet – and it almost always makes me feel better to read about others who are going through the same trouble. Other times I go out to Starbucks. I know, that’s just silly. But when I’m thinking about the fact that I just dropped my kid off at daycare and that I won’t see her again until that evening, I drive my butt over to a Starbucks before work and I drink my latte while it’s still warm. That helps.
4. Sheesh, Ashley, you are going right after the hard stuff, aren’t ya?
Our relationship has changed in some ways, but not in others. It’s so weird that I’m not even sure that I can explain. In some aspects we are stronger than ever – there is this little human being that we made that binds us in ways that we’ve never felt before. I look at Jon and I cannot believe what an amazing father he is. We make a great team – the two of us. It’s almost as if we’ve got this child care down to a science. In some other aspects it’s harder – we have different views and opinions on certain things (i.e. emergency situations or even just small bumps and bruises). There are so many things to take care of that at the end of the day we’re both exhausted and can barely keep our eyes open. It’s also harder to just drop everything and go out to dinner to refuel the love fire. Between the $$ (sitters, dinners out) and the time (sitters, leaving Peanut), we get out about 1/10th of the time, if not less. Yet in some sense, it’s still the same. Jon and I joke with one another, we get our evenings on the couch, we hang out and drink some wine or watch Big Bang theory. Because we both work together, we still pull pranks on each other in the office or grab a lunch out.
Just like any other challenge in marriage, you weigh your options, find some compromise and make sure that the good days outweigh the bad days. And they do – by a lot.
Phew. I feel like I need a break after that one.
If the questions above apply to you, I’d love to hear your answers!
(sorry for any typos here – I’m entertaining a 1 year old while finishing this up – so no time to proof read.)
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