Sorry Daddy, I like celery!

Yep, Neil has gone to the States with work for a week and before he'd even landed Hannah had been fed celery by her grandma. And liked it, too! It made a very loud crunch as she bit down on it, which was marvellously entertaining.

As well as celery, today Hannah ate cheerios and cranberry wheats for breakfast in combination - caused by the fact that we've now run out of both. Good job we're now at Grandma's and she's been shopping. Then we travelled up to mum and dad's, Hannah ate three organix gingerbread men in the car as we hit a bit of traffic that delayed lunch a tad.

Lunch was potato wedges, I put some creme fraiche and chives dip on one of them but Hannah didn't seem all that impressed so I ate the dip with my wedges instead :o) She had a banana for pudding, and ate about half of it - the rest ended up on the floor.

For dinner she had two slices of vegetable quiche, plus some salad bits (including the celery!). The quiche was more or less completely demolished, and for pudding she had two slices of melon, plus a raspberry fromage frais. Swiftly followed by a strawberry fromage frais - she seemed to be starving, poor girl apparently never gets fed! Bizarrely she couldn't be bothered to operate her own spoon today and when I presented the loaded spoon to her as normal, just leant forward with an open mouth to receive the fromage frais. It was very odd, and I'm not very practised at feeding her, I normally delegate the task! It did turn out to be quite a lot tidier than child-operated cutlery though so I can see the benefits.

And in a late update (10pm ish) Hannah woke up shortly after going to bed and ended up having a second bottle of milk as well as teething gel, calpol, ibuprofen, and anything else I could think of. I don't know whether this is a continuation of her 12 months growth spurt, whether travelling for 3 hours in the car worked up her appetite, or whether moving from formula onto cow's milk before bed is what's done it, but hopefully she's now settled for the night...fingers crossed! :o)

Will add some pictures once I've talked dad into showing me how to get them off his camera, as that's where they are currently! Bear with me...

Hurrah, here are the pics! 1: Hannah eating celery with a big grin 2: Dinner was yummy 3: My arms are too tired to work the spoon mummy...

Another triple update

Hannah's been suffering from a cold for the past few days, but apart from her cough sounding like she's on 40 a day at least, she's basically fine. No medicines necessary, which is a nice change!

Breakfast has been shreddies, except this morning when it was cranberry wheats as she's eaten all the shreddies (we bought a new box earlier though, don't worry!). She followed her shreddies with a banana on Friday, as she still seemed really hungry despite the hundred weight she's already eaten.

Lunches have been two slices of eggy bread today, a sandwich, and a sliced banana with raspberry fromage frais mixed through. Yesterday she had a slice of cheese and onion quiche, with some potato salad, some cherry tomatoes and a few bits of sweetcorn.

For dinner, she's eaten veggie carbonara, and today she had baked tomatoes this time with a bit of sour cream on top rather than mozzerella as I didn't have any of that in the fridge. She got on pretty well with it all, ate a surprising amount of the pasta, and generally had fun. On Friday night she had egg mayo served in two yorkshire puddings - a strange combination, but Hannah really liked it and steadily worked her way through the lot. Along with the peas and sweetcorn it came with.

Nothing spectacular has happened in the past few days, so there's not really much more to say than that. Although Hannah did go out to play in the garden for about the first time this year, the weather was (briefly) so nice on Saturday, hurrah!

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

Fast food

Shreddies for breakfast today, and that was the end of the packet. She'd have quite liked another bowl so had to put up with a few of my cranberry wheats.

For lunch Hannah ate a sausage, some cauliflower and about a ton of peas. I cooked her some carrot to go with it, but so far as I could tell she didn't actually eat any. Perhaps it was just too orange for her? She also had a pear and a fromage frais for pudding. Not quite as good with handing the spoon back for reloading today as she was yesterday, but it only ended up on the mats twice rather than after every single mouthful, so I definitely think she's realised that it takes longer to get more when she flings it across the room.

We were out visiting friends this afternoon, and while we were there Hannah ate about two breadsticks - although they came in small pieces so it was hard to tell. Tea happened very quickly when we got home, and she just had two slices of toast with cream cheese spread on top.

Hannah Gets the Giggles

This will be a quick update of the last two days. Breakfast yesterday was cheerios and a few shreddies, and today it was shreddies as we're out of cheerios. Hannah also had a few of my cranberry wheats - out of my bowl too, cheeky minx.

Lunch today was pretend carbonara, pasta spirals with creme fraiche and some baco bits stirred through. She followed this up with some grapes and a quartered pear as well as a fromage frais. We had a breakthrough with the fromage frais, too. For the first time ever, Hannah held the spoon out for me to take off her after each mouthful. Normally it's hit and miss whether it ends up on the floor, on the cat, on the highchair somewhere...you get the idea! So a definite step forward, hopefully it'll happen next time too.

Yesterday Hannah had some potato wedges, plus some butterscotch flavour angel delight for pudding - she ate loads, which was rather disappointing as we were sharing it and I didn't get as much as I expected to!

Dinner yesterday was baked tomatoes and pesto, again Hannah ate loads - 4 tomatoes to be exact, followed by half a dozen grapes, 1 1/2 pears and precisely no segments of orange.

The orange was too tart for her, she pulled a face and did a whole-body judder when she tasted it. She scared me a bit with the grapes, she put them in her mouth whole and while she did bite into them the chewing was...well frankly she couldn't be bothered with the whole idea of chewing. She tried to swallow two grapes whole, and we had a moment before she managed to spit them out. However all was fine, and my heart rate slowed down eventually!

Today for dinner, Hannah ate two slices of cheese on toast. She ate all of it, including the toast all except a couple of crusts. And for some reason she got the giggles, so obviously I had to get a video of it - nothing to do with the fact I was pulling faces at her, I'm sure!

Easy Peas-y

Hannah's eaten loads in the last two days! She's started both days with an enormous bowl of cranberry wheats, in fact between us we've finished the box off already :o)

For lunch yesterday she had a quorn fillet, some potato wedges that I sprinkled a bit of cayenne pepper onto, and about a ton of peas (well, ish). She really enjoyed the peas, and seemed fascinated by how small they were and how she could chase them around the tray on her highchair. The wedges and quorn also went down well. Pudding was a few grapes.

Dinner yesterday was a couple of sices of toast with lentil pate spread on it. We've finally nearly eaten all of the lentil pate - one batch has lasted ages in the freezer - so it's nearly time to cook up a new batch. I also gave Hannah some raisins, which went the same way as the peas.


Today for lunch Hannah had a packet of carrot organix wotsits while we were out and about, plus two nectarines and a banana. The banana was a bit underripe and she wasn't all that keen on it, although she still managed about half of it. She's showing off her ability to eat a nectarine one handed while wielding a sippy cup:


Dinner was a dairy-based affair with two rice cakes spread with cream cheese, a serving of cottage cheese, and a peach flavoured fromage frais. As usual, anything arriving via a spoon was very well received and there was lots of excitement on show.

Hannah's also now having mixed feeds, for the past week she's had a breastfeed first thing in the morning (well, before 8am which is early enough for me!) then a bottle of formula before bed. She's consistently only taking those two milk feeds now, and I'll be moving her onto moo juice rather than mummy juice in just over a month, when she turns one :oO

Beany Baby

Hannah had cranberry wheats for breakfast again today - Neil gave her an enormous bowlful of them and she ate the lot again.

For lunch I made cauliflower cheese for all of us. Hannah sucked the cheese sauce off every bit of cauli and did eat some pieces of cauli itself. She had some raisins and a banana for pudding, too.




Dinner tonight was beans on toast - an entire half sized tin of beans spread across two slices of toast. As normal Hannah carefully picked each bean off the toast, ate it and when she'd finished with that she sucked the bean juice out of the toast, then finally got round to eating the toast itself. No pudding, I figured all those beans were enough for anyone!

Back on the veggies

Things got more or less back to normal today after a week of topsy turvy meals. Hannah had cranberry wheats for breakfast - like shredded wheat bitesize but filled with cranberry puree. Yes, we're out of shreddies! She really liked them though, hurrah :o)

Lunch today was baked tomatoes. I did three tomatoes this time and again Hannah ate the lot! She followed this with some grapes that I cut in half, and also ate a slice of bread and butter.

For dinner I made some potato wedges - all Auntie Jo's fault, since she and BabyG had them for lunch. I pleased to report that they were lovely, and Hannah ate loads! She ate nearly 2 entire potatoes worth of wedges, plus a banana and finally two bits of her chocolate buttons easter egg. A very popular choice!

Gnocchi not bad!

Another nappy free day today, but I've figured out that folding a towel and putting it in the high chair works well enough to soak up any accidents during meals - although thankfully we haven't had any.

Breakfast was half cranberry wheats, half shredded wheat again, and Hannah ate lots of them yet again. She's figured out that there's food in her hand as well as the bit that's poking out of the top of her fist, and she's now pushing that bit into her mouth rather than just dropping it when she reaches for the next bit of food. Not every time, but mostly.

For lunch we picniced in the living room again, and Hannah ate a bit of sandwich. Half of it had lentil pate in, a quarter had cream cheese and cucumber, and the other quarter had hummus and cucumber. To my surprise she did actually go for the cucumber today, and ate 3 or 4 slices of it. The bread mostly got mauled, she left all of the crust and a fair amount of the rest of it too. For pudding she ate a whole pear, and still acted hungry so I cut her up another pear, and she ate 3/4 of it! Can't believe how much she put away! She's still carefully spitting out the skin of the pear, but all the flesh had gone.

Dinner was her first taste of gnocchi with tomato and basil sauce with a bit of grated cheese sprinkled on top. She really liked the gnocchi, which was good to see, and ate all of what I gave her. However she got far more excited about the prospect of fromage frais and rusk for pudding - and here's a video of her with the fromage frais:

Happy Pancake Day!

Happy pancake day everyone! (Or, as the advertisers would have us believe, happy jif lemon day.) It seemed rude not to offer Hannah the chance of pancakes today, so that's what she had for her lunch - two of them, one with cream cheese in and the other with hummus in. I haven't quite gone so far as to sprinkle sugar on her food...

For breakfast she had half shredded wheat bitesize and half cranberry wheats. It was funny watching her eat them, as once she figured out some had cranberry filling in she systematically went through and bit into each one. If it didn't have filling it quickly got discarded, although she did eventually go back to them once she'd eaten all the cranberry ones.

For dinner Hannah had a slice of cheese on toast, plus some tinned fruit cocktail. All in all though she hasn't really eaten much today, and she hasn't drunk extra milk either. She has, however, been suffering with a horrendous bout of nappy rash - all meals eaten picnic style on towels in the living room as I kept her nappy free for most of the day.

It made life a bit interesting, and rather than put her head down for a rest part way through the meal, since she wasn't in the high chair she had a quick lie down instead!

As for yesterday's food, breakfast was shredded wheat, while lunch was scrambled egg on toast. She didn't eat much of the scrambled egg, but got through a surprising amount of the toast, so yay! Her dinner was a few quorn pieces with peas and carrots. She didn't have any of the carrots, ate about half a dozen peas, and most of the quorn pieces. Not sure what was going on there, as previously she's gone for both carrots and peas in preference to other things.

Fingers crossed her nappy rash is better tomorrow.

Pasta bake v cauliflower cheese

Hannah has got more teeth, the two top middle ones have now turned up, a week or two after the ones immediately outside them. So with six teeth to use on her food, we've definitely noticed she's getting better at biting - us as well as the food!

Breakfast has been cranberry wheats (Friday) and shredded wheat bitesize (Saturday). She ate an absolutely HUGE amount yesterday - about the same as I'd eat, if not even more. I couldn't believe she'd finished the bowlful, but there was very little left behind to find in the clean up.

Her lunches have been cauliflower cheese and pasta bake. The cauliflower cheese was fairly successul - much more so that last time I tried her with it. It was very messy, but I'll definitely make it for her again. She even ate quite a bit of the cauliflower, which in the past she hasn't really seemed very interested in. The pasta bake wasn't so successful, probably on account of the millions of shredded wheat she'd filled up on at breakfast. The fromage frais that followed it though was well received - enthusiastic shrieks in between sucking the spoon clean is always a sign.

As you can see, she's keen on the cauli (this time):

But what's going on outside is much more interesting (high wind making a for sale sign flip to and fro):


...but even that gets boring after a while!:

For dinner, on Friday Hannah ate a cream cheese and avocado sandwich followed by a fromage frais. She did pretty well with the sandwich - although she pulled the bread apart to get at the filling better - but didn't eat all of the avocado, prefering to pull it out and cast it aside. I'd slightly mashed half an avocado so that I could spread it, I think in future I'd slice it instead so that she can pick it up better if she deconstructs the sandwich.

Yesterday she had half a baked potato, with the inside scooped out and mixed with a little cream cheese, plus a corn thin also with cream cheese. For pudding she ate a portion of chocolate flavoured angel delight. I have never seen her so excited about food, I don't think! The squeals and flailing legs and arms were some indication of what she thought of it :o) Neil was feeding her, and he noticed that she seemed to be drinking a lot of water during the process too, she'd have a mouthful or two of the angel delight and then have a bit of water in between, and she carried on doing this the whole time.

Melon Madness!

Today's breakfast was a twist on bitesize shredded wheat - I gave Hannah some of the asda cranberry filled ones instead. She seemed quite surprised when she first bit into one, but swiftly polished off the lot.

I made a one-egg cheese omelette for lunch, and chopped up some melon for pudding. Hannah did really well with the omelette, and ate not one, but two whole slices of melon. And had a fair amount of water from her sippy cup, too.

For dinner there was a vegetarian sausage roll, and some pieces of dried fruit. She's not tried dried fruit before, and judging by the expression on her face you'd have thought I was poisoning her. She ate a bit of the dried peach, chewed it, pulled a face but swallowed it anyway, and repeated the whole thing all over again. Many times. She didn't like the dried apricots at all, even though they were the really nice juicy ones, so I don't think I'll bother giving her those again for quite some time.