We have about two weeks left in Rome, and time is flying. The girls and I got sick last week, so that ate up a lot of our time. Poor Willa seemed to get the worst of it. There goes that theory about breastfed babies not getting sick.
Speaking of feeding, I’ve started Willa on solid foods. Normally I don’t buy purees (I made ALL of Charlotte’s food! Call it “working mom guilt”), but I just can’t resist the interesting baby foods at our local grocery store here in Rome.
Baby’s first veal with parmigiano.
They also have horse, lamb, rabbit, and several types of fish.
This baby could model for Gerber. In fact, she is CUTER than a Gerber baby.
Anyway, I love the idea of introducing babies to a wide variety of flavors, early on. I was so hesitant with Charlotte because I was reading outdated advice online about introducing foods slowly and waiting until 1 year (or later!) for a lot of highly allergenic foods (wheat, milk, eggs, peanuts, strawberries, etc). I still hold my breath every time she tries something new, but I’m trying to keep in mind that food allergies are still relatively rare (despite the recent increase in incidence). We’ve tried to encourage her to eat lots of different things, and she’s a very adventurous eater. Charlotte went through a phase around age 2 when she only wanted mac ‘n’ cheese (“snackeroni,” as she called it). Dinner time was becoming really stressful because she stopped eating veggies and protein. We started bribing her with dessert, which I felt must be terribly wrong, but I was worried that she wouldn’t get enough nutrients otherwise. If you’re going through this with your kids, I have to share this wonderful book about kids and eating: How to Get Your Kid to Eat: But Not Too Much by Ellyn Satter. The basic premise is that your job as a parent is to put healthy food on the table. It is your kid’s job to eat it, or not. I was really skeptical at first. If we put the food in front of her and stopped encouraging her to eat it, would she actually just… eat it on her own? The answer is YES. It took a while, but it worked. No more bribing with dessert, no more stress associated with food.
All this rambling about food is making me hungry. (Did I mention I’m doing Weight Watchers right now?)
