Fruity Pebbles

Since I am spending the weekend alone with Pebbles -- and since she slept very well last night when I finally gave in and nursed her to sleep around 11 -- here's a post on how my rascal baby is doing at nearly 8 months.



-- She waves and says, "Haaaa!" to everyone she sees, which most people correctly interpret as "Hi!"

-- She now completely refuses spoon feeding, yet cannot yet spoon feed herself, making it a challenge to get anything into her. She only wants finger foods, and only those few finger foods she likes. So although we are still introducing a new food every four days, her main diet consists of:

cheerios
rice cakes
diced ripe pears
a little yogurt, mashed carrots or applesauce, often mixed with infant cereal
a few swallows of juice




Those last things, the liquidy things, she only eats by accident when we bury cheerios or bits of rice cake under them.



Fortunately, Cheerios are fortified with iron, so I'm hoping she gets enough iron each day. Soon we'll be introducing tofu, and that goes ok we should be able to give her a little fortified soy milk instead of juice sometimes.

I'm ok with Pebbles just feeding herself -- her fierce independence is charming, even if the messy hands, face, clothes, tray, hair, chair and floor aren't. But it just figures that she started refusing purees after I finally ordered these cute baby food cubes and filled them with pureed carrots and squash for the freezer.

-- She gets excited when Epu comes home from work, and she waves her arms and squeals or shouts to compete with Nutmeg for his attention.

-- She never did take a pacifier or a bottle. I think the no paci thing is making the whole getting-to-sleep-without-my-boob-in-her-mouth thing harder. However, she is capable of sleep sans mam. She has fallen asleep in Epu's arms, in the swing, in the Ergo backpack, and even sometimes in the car seat or stroller. Just not in a crib or in my arms. She drinks out of a sippy cup, but with difficulty.

-- Likes: Crawling around the house exploring, smiling at people and "chatting," taking a bath,
dogs, babies or pictures of babies, Nutmeg, Mommy, Daddy, clapping, singing, stories from books.
Dislikes: Being left with a babysitter, going to sleep, eating anything off a spoon, lying still for a diaper change, getting dressed, being put in crib alone, the car seat.