Baby Food

Sameer started solids around five months. We started him with rice cereal, then oatmeal, then carrots and so on. As usual he liked all the sweet stuff and is not so fond of veggies other than carrots and sweet potatoes (they're both sweet). Surprisingly he likes dal -- dhuli masoor(red lentil), dhuli moong, arhar(pigeon peas). It took some time but I finally figured out how he likes his dal. I pressure cook it, with a teensy bit of salt and before serving I add a little bit of ghee. Earlier I had to puree it, otherwise he did not enjoy it, but now at nine months, he can eat it just cooked -- no mashing needed. Another thing we tried with success was the banana-cado :-) Its a ripe avocado mashed with a ripe banana. No cooking needed.

Now I want to try some daliya khichdi that his mausi suggested. One of the sites I like for baby food is www.wholesomebabyfood.com. Any more ideas would be welcome.

My boy is growing!

With every passing day I find more and more changes in Sameer and I just wonder, where and how is he learning? Just a few days ago, when I was feeding him after his bath, as I usually do, he turned his face away and then smiled. I offered him the spoon again, and again he just smiled and turned his face. To try one last time, I offered him some of the mixture on my finger. This time he looked at it with interest and finally opened his mouth. After that he gave me no more refusals and in fact ate gladly. I wonder if he was just playing with me earlier; specially the twinkle in his eyes as he refused his food was interesting.

Nowadays while crawling, he likes to play with his firetruck stacker. He'll take the pieces and keep pushing them away and then follow them around. Then he'll push them some more and continue to follow them through the house. If one of the pieces gets out of his reach, he'll try to get it back. If he can't, he'll call us. Sometimes I'll ignore his cries and he'll pick up something else, although there are times when he only wants what he was playing with earlier and will not stop till someone gets the toy back for him.

Whenever I'm vacuuming, he'll follow the vacuum cleaner at a distance. If the vacuum cleaner gets too close, he'll tense up, but he will not move away. The first time he started crying when I brought the vacuum close to him, but now he just looks at it with interest, although luckily, he hasn't started touching it yet.

His babbling has also grown quite a bit. Earlier he used to babble, but very infrequently. Lately he has started to babble all the time, and sometimes he'll start speaking in "sentences." If he doesn't want to get his diaper changed, his clothes removed or being forced to sit in the bouncy chair while his ma or pa finish some work, he'll go: wla bla nyan nyan mamamama nyan mam mumm ummm nyan blawbla. His brows will be wrinkled, and his tone will clearly show his frustration with the situation. I have tried to video him during these times, but anytime he sees the camera, he stops everything and just stares at it.

A baby elephant in the house

Sameer started sitting up around the beginning of October. It took him one month to learn that. By the end of October he was crawling easily and even trying to stand up. In betwen there were stages of hopping and just plain falling and trying to inch forward (on the bed). These days, all he wants to do is move. If Rahul tries to hold him for a few minutes after coming back from work, he'll protest. He just loves to be on the floor and move constantly. The only toys that interest him in fact are the ones that move. So pieces of his firetruck stacker work well. Some frisbees that we bought a long time ago and were lying unused on the bottom rack of a bookshelf work well too. He discovered them himself while leisurely strolling though the house. It is so much fun watching him crawl. His moves remind me of an elephant, the dreamy lazy stroll he takes when he aimlessly moves through the house and then, as soon as he sees something he likes or wants he'll almost run to the object in quick short steps on all fours -- so reminiscent of the huge elephant. There are times when he'll be crying, looking for me or Rahul, or other times when I'll have to entice him away from a wire or something else and as soon as he sees either one of us, he'll come running to us on all fours. In his size he may resemble a mouse but watch him move and you cannot but think of this sweet huge beast.