Maiden restaurant voyage!

We went out for our first official family dinner on the weekend. Pizza Bellaroma in Fremantle - one of Josh's favourite eateries! Ethan looked proud as punch in his high chair, bright red bib and all - which I might add, matched his high chair perfectly! We ordered a kids pasta for them to share, being quite large servings, and also a pasta and a pizza. The kids pasta came out first, and we shared it between the plates. No sooner had I dished it out did Ethan reach out to grab the plate and pull it towards himself! Talk about eager! He did have a bit of a problem keeping the pasta in his hand due to the amount of sauce, and a fair bit ended up on the floor. Oops!!! 

Tonight we had a bacon and sweet potato frittata for dinner. Ethan ate almost his whole bowl! He ate even more than his brother did. His eating is now getting a lot less messy that it used to be. There isn't quite as much hiding in between his legs and under his thunder thighs as there was! Which of course means that whatever is left in his bowl must be ending up in his tummy!

His pincer grip seems to be improving now as well. Instead of grabbing bits of food with his fist and mushing it up, he uses the ends of his fingers and tries to pick it up with his thumb and index finger. He still has a bit of trouble, but is definitely getting there! He even managed to eat quite a few quartered grapes!

Ethan gets so excited about his food these days too. If I sit him in his high chair and come towards him with his food he starts bouncing up and down eagerly, kicking his legs around and reaching for it straight away.  He had just had his breakfast the other day, and I was having my morning tea, complete with a piece of banana cake. Ethan was playing with his toys at that stage, but when he saw me coming towards him with a piece of cake, well I have never seen him get so excited!

Savour the flavour

So now that Ethan is really getting into eating, he is very willing to try anything, and usually loves it! The other day he had Butter Chicken, steamed rice and steamed veges. He actually ate more than his brother, who seems to be going through a fussy stage at dinner time. Josh tends to eat more during the day at the moment and at dinner will take it or leave it.

Last night Ethan tucked into Tuscan Meatballs and rigatoni pasta. He ate almost every scrap off his tray, and for once there wasn't a huge amount on his lap when I pulled the tray off.

He is also just starting to commando crawl, but of course does it in his own special way - backwards! I am sure all this extra movement will make him even more hungry!

We had his 8 month check up at the Child Health Nurse (CHN) yesterday. He is going great guns - weighing in at 11.4kg (off the charts) and his length is now 76cm (97th percentile). The CHN was telling me that I should start introducing finger foods now, and cut back on purees. I told her Ethan has never had purees, and she said that she wished more people would do that! She can't believe the number of people who are still trying to stop their babies eating purees well into their first year.

Its so easy doing BLW - I love that i can get 4 plates or bowls out and we all eat the same thing! I just wish I had done it 2 years ago with Josh!

Gourmet Baby

I don't have much news to add since yesterday, I know its not often I post more than once a week! But i just wanted to share what Ethan had for dinner tonight! Pasta spirals with Italian sausage, fennel and rocket! He really loved it!

I am currently following Weight Watchers, but have to try to make meals that are not too "weight-watchery" for the sake of the boys. At their age I know that they still need their full fat dairy and healthy fats for good health. However we do try to eat as well as we can and I like to stick to my daily allowance. I got the recipe for tonight's dinner out of the current Weight Watchers magazine.

To tell the honest truth, I am not usually a big fan of fennel. My only real experience with it was when I was about 14 and went to my Italian friend's house for dinner and they served a fennel salad. All I remember is that really strong aniseed taste, and it was a bit much for me being used to English cooking! Ever since then I have avoided anything with fennel in it.

I was motivated to cook the dish however, while reading the Weight Watchers recipe boards and seeing someone else was trying it. I do like to try out new recipes and also if I can, try out new ingredients. And knowing that tastes can change throughout your life, I thought I would give it a go. I was dicing the fennel to cook in the recipe and was not convinced I was going to like it. However I found that once cooked the fennel wasn't too overbearing! Plus with the extra herbs I added and the Italian pork sausage, the flavour of the fennel was not too strong, and actually quite nice. And Ethan ate some, so it can't have been that bad! Plus Steve went back for thirds!

Fritter away!

I made Ethan some vegetable fritters for dinner this afternoon, and they went down a treat! I did grated carrot, zucchini, onion and cheese. He ate more than he has ever eaten before, finishing off almost 2 fritters! On top of that he also had some salad vegetable sticks and some cheese. He is really getting into his food now! And as an added bonus, Josh also got into some of the fritters, wanting to be like his little brother! It seems I have found a good way to increase Josh's vegetable intake!

Until the last few days I have only been offering Ethan 2 meals each day, but now that he seems happy to eat a bit more i have added lunch as well. Usually he enjoys a piece of fruit or a few finger sandwiches with vegemite and cheese or avocado.

Ethan has developed a rather annoying noise - a high pitched squealing, and he knows how to use it! If i put him in his high chair then walk back to the kitchen to get his meal or a forgotten spoon - "ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!". How on earth such a noise comes out of such a little human being I do not know! He also does it if i disappear from his sight for a few seconds. He must have figured out that its quite effective at getting me to come back asap!!!

Get your tooth into it!!

Well I am very proud to announce that Ethan cut his first tooth yesterday! He did it with such grace too - not even a peep from him about it, he just sat there smiling during all his awake time the days previous, and night sleeping was not interrupted at all! So you can imagine my surprise when I did my daily inspection of his gums to find a little clear tip of a tooth on his bottom gum! My little man is growing up :(

Onto eating - he is really improving his motor skills now. He often passes food from one hand to another. He is also developing his grip - learning how tight he needs to hold soft foods so he doesn't squash them. i had cut up some very ripe pear for him and as I passed him the first piece he took it so carefully and gently from me. Even when he picked the other bits off the high chair tray he was very gentle with it. Another thing I have seen him do is while holding a bit of food in his fist he will use his thumb on his other hand and poke it into the bottom of his fist so the bit of food comes further out the top of his fist! Now that was quite amazing!

Occasionally he gets a little over-excited with a bit of food, and either sticks too much in his mouth, or not chewing enough before he swallows it. So today while he was having lunch i was sitting in front of him, and put a bit of pear in my mouth and showed him how i was chewing slowly and then swallowing. He sat there copying my chewing movements! It was quite comical. Then he had a little giggle. Funny little dude!

Pasta Pasta Pasta

I cooked up a simple tomato based sauce for Ethan to have with pasta. It was another recipe from the BLW cookbook, and I must say it was quite tasty! It might actually be the recipe I use from now on! The reason I made the pasta sauce was because we were having prawns for our dinner, and didn't want to risk giving Ethan shellfish. So i whipped up the yummy tomato based sauce, and froze a few little containers of it as well to use another time. The pasta was definitely a big hit! I am not sure if it was just improved motor skills, or the fact that he liked the sauce, but there was definitely a large amount of pasta ingested! A few weeks prior he was having trouble getting the pasta spirals into his mouth. Oh and of course there was a lot of mess involved, but its all good fun, and nothing a few wet wipes couldn't fix. Aside from the plastic covered seat of the high chair, which now has a slight orange tinge - if anyone could tell me what to get that off with I would be grateful!

I also whipped up some rice pudding from the BLW cookbook - minus sugar, insert stewed fruit for sweetness. I also added a bit of cinnamon for extra flavour. It was actually quite tasty, and Josh thought so too, polishing off a big bowl of it. Ethan quite enjoyed it, although it didn't really stick to a spoon very well, so I put it on his high chair tray and let him get his hands in there.

Toast is still a big hit, and this morning he had his first ever taste of vegemite. He seemed to like it - yep he is defintely an Aussie!

The Muffin Man

I decided it was about time I cooked something for Ethan. So I had a look through my copy of the BLW Cookbook and decided to try some of the carrot muffins. Josh had a great time helping me make them, which was an added bonus! He is a little Masterchef, after all! Ethan sat in his high chair while we mixed up the batter, but by the time they were in the oven it was time for his next nap. So when the muffins came out of the oven and had cooled enough to be picked up, of course I had my own little food critic Josh waiting to try one! He liked them so much he pinched another one when i wasn't looking!

When Ethan finally rose from his slumber, he had his lunchtime milk, and a while after that I sat him in his chair and let him at the muffin. He loved it! It's a great feeling when something made especially for him is received well! All that was left at the end of the expedition were a few crumbs on the tray and bits and pieces on his chair. The remaining muffins have been frozen, ready to take out whenever we need. They should be good little morsels to take out and about with us when required.

This morning at breakfast time I thought I would try something a bit different to his usual weetbix or porridge. He hadn't had toast at breakfast for a while, so instead of spreading on some avocado, I decided to give french toast a whirl! The crusts were nice and soft and didn't need to be cut off, so it was quite a large serve. I cut it into 4 soldiers and at the end of his meal there was only one soldier left! Another hit with the little munchkin.