The Boy Can Eat

Last week, after Auric's belated 6-month check-up, we finally introduced him to food in solid form. What excitement! He was giddy, and seemed to think that the whole thing was hilarious and wonderful.

He got 3 days of just rice cereal mixed with breast milk. And the boy can eat! Late last week, I pulled some frozen containers of homemade pureed butternut squash from the freezer, labeled 12/08. Ahh, the memories of my baby food assembly line. He has taken to that as well. For the last few days, I've been feeding him twice-daily meals of about half a container of butternut squash and then mixing up rice cereal with the pumped milk until he seems full. However, I've been depleting my supply of pumped milk that I need for bottle feeding prior to his bath at night. So this morning I tested his tolerance for rice cereal mixed with water. And it worked. Pumped milk saved! Also, since the squash has a thin consistency, I thickened it with the rice cereal, and that was what he seemed to like the best.

We have the workings of a routine. He's been waking at 5 or 5:30 am, I nurse him and play with him for awhile. Then, if I can keep him up until his sister wakes up some time around 7, then I try to have us all at the table together, eating our breakfast. Then it's off to school with Thora. At night, I try to get the same family dinner experience again.

However, all this takes brain power (something that is running low in the wee hours of the morning and then again after a long day) and tons of preparation. (What feels like "tons of preparation" is really just being home at the right time, and having pulled a couple items from the fridge so they're room temperature. Not much, but I'm easily overwhelmed.) I feel less like a mom who is on top of things, and more like a frazzled lady in a game show where I'm supposed to hold a baby on one hip, talk through negotiations with a almost-tantruming toddler, while preparing a dinner for two with one arm. Picture inefficient trips from cabinets and drawers to table, a blur between fridge, microwave, and oven, all while jiggling the hungry boy and negotiating the toddler away from the edge of a tantrum.

It's not pretty. But it gets done.