Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Messy Eater

There comes a time in every man's life where he needs to start eating food with a little substance. This time has come for Jace. Our pediatrician, Dr. Witt, told Joe that Jace is ready to start eating solid food any time from 4 - 6 months. We wanted to push it and wait as long as we could ... but then realized that I will be going back to school soon. We thought that it would be important to get him used to solids before school started.

Since he was born I have had an unusal desire to make all of his food. I say unusual simply because I usually take the easy way out. Joe and I bought a nice food processor and I found a great website geared for making baby food ... and I was ready to go. What do kids start with? Cereal! To make rice cereal, you grind brown rice into a powder. Then, when it's time to eat, you boil 1 1/4 cup water with 1/2 c. rice powder for 10 minutes. You then add as much formula (for me) or breast milk (for the "lactators" out there) to give it a nice smooth consistancy. When you buy baby cereal the rice has already been cooked, which is why the boiling is necessary -- leaving it in it's raw state makes it difficult to digest.

I got out the grinder that Ann and Wayne gave us for Christmas last year and was ready to go! After several minutes of cranking (it's a manual grinder) I had a nice fine white rice powder. I dumped it into a ziplock, dated it, and threw it into the fridge.

Last week We made up the cereal for Jace ... here we go! We put his favorite bib on him **Spit Happens** set him in his bumbo chair, and tried it out. He only ate 1-2 tablespoons -- but did very well. Unfortunately our battery on the camera was going out and we didn't get much in the way of pictures, so the photos you see here are day 2 of cereal. He has had it for 4 days straight now -- and seems to really enjoy it. Next week we'll start feeding it to him in the morning and at night. Then the next week after that we start with squash!

Oh how his diapers will change ....

3 comments:

Unknown said...

so cute! i love the last picture! i told bryce you even made the rice cereal and he was super excited. He thought i was a little crazy at first for wanting to make food but he'll appreciate it when he sees how much we save :)

Lynsey said...

It looks like he is having fun! I'm glad his feedings are going so well.

Mom and Dad said...

Well, Jen, I wanted to make our baby food because I KNEW what I put in it! Glad you are doing that for Jace. Good for you both!
Guess I need to say what I feel even though it is repetitious of everyone else's comments -- Jace has so much personality, and the fact that you enjoy him and he enjoys EVERYTHING is so delightful.
Thanks so much for sharing these precious moments in your family.
Grannie Annie