Feeding Miss Morgan

I've decided to make my own baby food. There are a number of reasons for this decision but the top of my list is knowing what is in the food I give to my baby. Sure there are plenty of baby food companies that make cute and convenient little jars of food in all flavors, but do I know for a fact that there is nothing but veggie and water in those jars? Do I know that there is no extra salt or sugar added? No. So, move over Martha Stewart, here I come (minus the insider trading). I plan to purchase only organic fruits and veggies (most likely from Fresh Market although today's purchase came from Gardener's Market) with which to make her foods. There will be nothing to them other than the produce of the day and a little formula to help smooth out the texture. Wholesome Baby Foods has some great tips on how to make homemade baby food and what things to try at which stages.

As a Mother's Day present my mother gave me a nifty (did I just use the word “nifty” in a sentence?) little contraption called the Magic Bullet. (There's one for my list of things that sound dirty but aren't.) It is basically a mini blender, designed mostly, it seems, for making mixed drinks but will puree veggies nicely. This morning I set out to test said contraption by making a sweet potato puree.

There is quite a bit of debate, it would seem, among mothers as to whether one should feed a baby pureed foods. Some seem to think that a baby should only eat solids when she can pick up her foods in her own hands. MJ is no where near having the coordination to do such a thing but is she ever interested in food. Not only does she grab for whatever I'm eating, but she watches food with an intense curiosity and will open and close her mouth when she sees someone eating. MJ has demonstrated over and over again in the past weeks her intense interest in food so I felt no need to wait longer.

When I made the sweet potato puree I made enough to fill two ice trays. Each cube of the ice tray works out to about an ounce of food. I have, at the moment, no idea how much of this Morgan will want to eat, or if she'll even like sweet potatoes at all. However, I intend to start with two cubes of food (thawed out in the fridge and mixed in with a little formula) and see how she does. Although she has mastered the art of eating cereal with a spoon, in fact she wants to manipulate the spoon herself, we have never tried anything but brown rice cereal so the different taste and texture may freak her out at first. As always I will have her bottle standing by at the ready for when she gets frustrated and too hungry to want to play these stupid games anymore. I'm a little gun shy about allowing her to “finger paint” with the potato like I did with the cereal only because I just know that orange goo will get EVERYWHERE and we are a house without a dog to act as a wet-vac.