Solids

I've been meaning to blog about Chou-chou's ventures over into the "real" foods territory for some time now. He's been steadily eating mashed up goodness for about three weeks now, slowly building up his menu offerings in 4-7 day increments (gotta make sure he's not sensitive/allergic to anything). Both Jarod and I were convinced Chou-chou would be a solids champ, gobbling down cube after cube of sweet potatoes, carrots and chou-fleur:). But actually, Chou-chou's interest really waned after the initial excitement of using a spoon wore off. We have trouble getting him to take more than 5-7 bites lately. I'm pretty sure he's been going through a growth spurt over the last week- either that or he's trying to make up for his low appetite while sick- as he's been wanting to nurse every 1.5-2 hours and eating through the night (I can barely keep up!). Just yesterday we tried adding a "lunch" while we were at the Children's Museum (for the first time, very exciting, but I digress...) and that seemed to go over better. Nights are really just not his best, so maybe we'll have more luck with a "brunch". In any case, we've introduced the following foods in the following order: sweet potatoes, rice cereal, apples, cauliflower, prunes (he's been straining to "go", so I made the executive decision that prunes were the next food to add). I had fun making a bunch of homemade purees about a month ago and, in my opinion, the homemade sweet potatoes are far tastier than the storebought! Chou-chou's favorites? He really seems to like the sweet potatoes, although he persistently makes a weird face when you first put them in his mouth. He also likes apples, but they can be constipating so we're trying to not overdo it. The rice cereal (which may as well just be paper mache paste, it's so glue-y) is met with satisfaction, too. Prunes and cauliflower are less-than-palatable, according to Chou-chou.
Another related topic that I've been meaning to document is that of solid... diapers. As a reminder, Jarod and I made the eco- and budget-friendly decision to use cloth diapers. This has gone very well from the start (or really since about 6 weeks- we had so many freebie disposables to use up and were trying to just stay alive at that point). We've only bought disposables twice, for our trip to Colorado over Xmas and then some for when I take Chou-chou to childcare at the club I go to-- not that I've been lately:) So anyway, like I was saying, the cloth diapering is going fantastic, and I think his bum is just the cutest in the colorful prints that pervade in the cloth diapering world! In walk "Mr. Smelly-I'm a real person now-poops". The rinse cycle is no longer enough to dispose of the solid matter in Chou-chou's pants... nor would we want his big-boy business in our washer. What to do? We hadn't really thought this far!! Well, this here Mommy, sometimes inaccurately accused of being girly-wimpy, took a deep breath and scrubbed the afore-mentioned matter off into the toilet. Hands submerged in brown water. The real deal. And (just about) every time since that first suprising diaper she's done it again(Daddy seemed to think "dunking" was enough-- not that he's not helping, he's just at work all day). And you know what? It's not really that bad. No, it's not enjoyable. Yes, I wish I could just chuck it in the landfill like most other parents. Wouldn't that be nice... But, there was a reason we decided to do cloth in the first place, and I think being "wimpy" or "lazy" doesn't help anything or anyone. So be it. Voila my two cents and more about solid foods, solid caca, and cloth diapers. I apologize for sounding holier-than-thou. Or maybe I don't. I don't spout off my opinions about all this to people's faces, so I suppose I can here, in the blogger universe void...
And here are a few pics of the whole solid foods adventure from a couple weeks back, sans dirty diapers.