When baby led weaning really pays off

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Kaia is just a few days shy of 14 months of age. She has about 7-8 teeth in the front, and in the last month, I’ve really noticed how adept she’s gotten at biting and tearing food, especially bread and vegetables. On Sunday, when I roasted brussel sprouts, I was cutting the sprout halves for her, assuming it would be easier to eat, but she rejected them. So I changed it up and instead just gave her whole halves. I figured she was advanced enough to handle this shape, even for the smaller sprouts, so why not try it now? And what did she do? She picked up a brussel sprout half, started pulling individual leaves and shoving them into her mouth. And when a sprout got to be about half the original size, she started tearing it with her front teeth to bite. I had this moment of pride just bursting out of my chest, and I felt so proud to watch my sweet baby developing her eating skills.

And well, that was tempered by her a couple meals later, when she decided she wanted nothing to do with the brussel sprouts. In the baby/toddler eating world, you win some, and ya lose some.

And after an afternoon in the playroom, a 104 F fever

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When we go in for check-ups at the pediatrician’s office, one of the first questions they will ask when you sign in is if your baby is at home or at daycare. There’s clearly a different set of expectations for illnesses for babies in daycare vs. at home, and I think they just want to make sure to ask all the right follow-up questions. We’ve been lucky to have a good nanny and have Kaia at home; it’s kept endless illnesses at bay that we’re ignorant to, but have just heard of. Well, after an afternoon at the play room yesterday, today, after her mid-morning nap, Kaia woke up feeling quite warm and barely ate anything other than a few brussel sprout leaves and some blueberries. We went out to a bakery, and she seemed completely listless the entire time. We went home and took her temperature, and no surprise — she had a fever. It was 104 F.

THAT IS HIGH. EEEEEK.

So we gave her some Dymadon (Australian version of infant Tylenol. No high fructose corn syrup, wee!), and had her take a nap. In a couple hours, she was kind of back to herself and had some appetite. She drank plenty of fluids, and her temperature came down in a couple hours. And then she talked and moaned in her sleep all night long.

Babies are like walking illnesses when they are young, and especially when in daycare. Luckily for us, Kaia is a little trooper and handled her fever well.

A cold afternoon spent in the play room

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It was in the single digits Fahrenheit today, so we had zero interest in even leaving the building today. I spent the morning making pho ga (chicken pho), and in the afternoon after lunch, I took Kaia down to the play room for some change of scenery, as well as to hopefully interact with some other kids who would come. When we first arrived, no one was there. But eventually, four kids and their moms arrived, and then a dad and his young son, who happened to be just one month older than Kaia. We exchanged names and apartment numbers, and then Kaia and Georgie slowly sized each other up. They kept staring at each other from afar and gradually walked and crawled closer to each other. It was clear they wanted to interact, but they were just figuring out the best way to do this. The dad warned me that his son could get a little aggressive, so he kept warning Georgie to be nice and gentle. And then, out of nowhere, as Georgie reached his hand out for Kaia, he whacked her straight on her forehead.

And with that, my Kaia Pookie started wailing and crying, burying her head into my chest and refused to look up.

The dad immediately freaked out, apologized, and thought I was going to get mad, but how could I? I just laughed it off. They’re just babies, I said to him. Don’t worry about it! They don’t know what they’re doing, and the boy is likely just testing his boundaries. After a quick cry and some cuddles, I placed Kaia on the mat next to Georgie, and they eventually started handing toys to each other and playing with trucks together. And it was really sweet to watch them interact, especially after that slightly rough start.

Honestly, though, I really wish Kaia had whacked him back and shown him who’s boss. I can’t have my baby getting picked on when I am not there…

Change the shape, and the Pookster will eat it

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I was determined to get Kaia to eat the sweet potato, lentil, and kale fritters I made. There was no way I was going to let her not eat any of them, especially after all the time and effort I put into making them. I figured the “finger” like shape wasn’t working, so this morning before the nanny came, I set Kaia up in her high chair and took the fritters apart, shaping them into tiny half domes and laying them all out in front of her. I told her what they were, and without any hesitation, she reached out and shoved one into her mouth, and then another, and then another, and bam! Suddenly, they were all gone except for crumbs (which, because I am frugal, I squished all together and had her eat, as well). The nanny arrived, and I told her that Kaia was finally eating the fritters.

“I knew she would eat it once the shape was changed!” the nanny exclaimed. She claims she tried to cut them up yesterday, but Kaia still refused to eat them. I guess we just have to do it when she’s not watching, otherwise she will know we are trying to “convert” her.

The best practice with trying to prevent picky eating is to constantly expose your child to different foods, even the ones they continually refuse just for the exposure. They cannot “dislike” food they are never shown. So regardless, even if it’s just one thing, I keep presenting them to Kaia in different ways so that even if she doesn’t touch the food, she will at least see it and know it exists. So far, this is working. It just takes… a LOT of time.

My baby, the true Chindian baby

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Since Chris had his molar extracted on Monday, I decided to make some chicken jook/congee. While I would normally insist on making this with homemade stock, alas, I am not always that lucky to have it at home, so I got a quart of stock from Whole Foods and “Asianized” it. After 15 minutes in the Instant Pot on high pressure and a little simmering, it tasted pretty good, if I do say so myself. And not only that, Kaia has really enjoyed having it as part of her dinner the last couple of days. Even though she’s only been exposed to jook one other time, which was when we were in San Francisco last August, she still clearly loves her jook. She cleaned her bowl completely both nights she had it for dinner. Our nanny said she was extremely happy with dinner both times I had her serve it. I also made some masoor dal, and despite it being a bit on the spicy side, she has eaten that well today with red quinoa. So while she may be wavering on certain vegetables and “fritter” preparations I’ve been doing, it is very clear: she is still true to her Chinese and Indian roots.

Baby led weaning – baby recipe testing

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Since Kaia turned 6 months old, I’ve mostly been doing baby led weaning (BLW) with all of her solid food eating. Although I have seen lots of articles, blogs, and social media posts about “BLW” food made specifically for babies (things like zucchini fritters, sweet potato/lentil fritters, etc., I wasn’t sure I really wanted to make any of them… because what if Kaia didn’t like these foods, and I ended getting stuck eating them, as Chris probably wouldn’t care for them? Plus, she would get more long term benefit just eating modified versions (no salt/sugar added) of what we’re already eating.

But then in the last month I figured, there wouldn’t be harm in trying to get different foods into her in different ways, and it would also be a little fun for me experiment with different recipes and how she could consume various vegetables or beans in fun ways. So I went a little nuts and I made three different things for her in the last couple of days: egg, cheddar, broccoli, red quinoa “muffins,” sweet potato, lentil, kale, and harissa fritters, and banana, chickpea, and peanut butter sugar-free “biscuits.” All of these recipes took quite some effort, especially since my food processor is quite small and not that strong (I’ve had it since I was 14, so that means this thing is 23 years strong!!). And when I was done making them, I felt quite proud at how they looked and came out. But the real test was: would she like eating these?

She took to the banana/chickpea/peanut butter “biscuits” right away. She’s happily eaten 3-4 of them every single day since Monday, as part of lunch and her afternoon snack. The egg bites she seemed fond of – she eats them but doesn’t seem to care when it runs out. And the sweet potato/lentil fritters? Well, she wants nothing to do with them. Two days in a row, and she just stares at them and swats them away. She will barely look at them, let alone touch them. Then she whines when it’s the only thing on her tray at meal time. What joy!

I might continue making the chickpea biscuits and will definitely keep making different combinations of mini egg muffins for her. But some of these recipes are just a bit too laborious to keep testing out to see if she’ll take to them. I’m way better off just giving her the exact food I’m making for Chris and me and seeing if she likes that. That will be far more sustainable in the long run, anyway.

“How was your weekend?” “Awful, thanks for asking”

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I had a call with a colleague of mine on a separate team. He knew I was out sick the last two days. He asked me what had happened and how the weekend was, so I point blank just told him everything. We also had some annoying topics to discuss regarding customers, so all in all, it wasn’t the most uplifting conversation ever. But we both joked about it and he said, “well, I’m not used to seeing this animated version of Yvonne, but I can take it!”

Even when things really suck, and when all you can see is that dog meme, the one of the dog with the house burning around him, saying “This is fine,” I still try to inject humor into it all. Because at the end of the day, your disposition is a choice. You don’t really always get to choose your circumstances, but you do choose your attitude about it at the end of the day. And if you can’t laugh about dumb things that happen, then what are you going to laugh about?

When the nanny calls out sick and your entire family is either sick or exhausted

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Our nanny texted me last night to let me know that she likely ate something bad at the wedding she attended on Saturday and felt terrible. Her entire body hurt and she couldn’t keep any food down, so she would likely be taking a sick day today.

That’s just great, Chris and I both thought. This is exactly what we needed after a hellish weekend. But it is what it is, and we’d have to suck it up. I took the day off to care for Kaia Pookie while Chris went to have a back left molar extracted and chiseled away. It was an exhausting day of childcare, cooking, more childcare, and cleaning. At least Kaia ate better today and wasn’t as upset. I went to buy some things to make Chris some jook since he needed soft food, and I figured it would be good, simple, comforting food for all of us to have now. And when I checked my work email and Slack, I felt so overwhelmed looking at all the things I had to follow up on. I was NOT looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, already feeling behind, and knowing I also had an 8am presentation to do, likely with some challenging characters.

This is why being a working mom can really suck. There is literally always something to do, always something that you forgot to do or are behind on, and always someone or something waiting for you to do something else. And you really cannot have it all, all at once, ever. And when you have external childcare, it doesn’t always work out, and there’s really nothing you can do about it but just take a deep breath and try your best to power through it all. That’s why we just have to take it day by day.

And when it rains, it pours: the jelly bean that fractured Chris’s tooth

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And as though things could not have gotten worse this weekend…

At some point on Friday night, Chris was rummaging through our pantry, trying to find something sweet to eat that was not part of the Australian stash he hauled back from Melbourne. He found a small bag of jelly beans that a friend had gifted me last spring and started eating them. Lo and behold, one of the jelly beans manages to hurt one of his back molars. He told me about the pain on Friday, but he didn’t make too much of it. I knew it was bad when on Saturday morning, he asked me to text our dentist to see if he could come in to see them today: the pain had gotten really severe, and he wasn’t feeling well. The dentists said they wouldn’t be in Manhattan this weekend, but if he wanted, he could come up to see them in Yonkers. Chris ended up getting a Zipcar to drive up there to see them. They took an x-ray of his tooth to find that the stupid jelly bean had actually fractured his tooth, and the fracture was so severe that the entire tooth needed to be extracted.

WHAT???

So, they made a call to an oral surgeon to see if they could fit Chris in for a consultation Monday morning. All I could think when he came back from the dentist with his painkillers and antibiotics was… seriously? All because of a stupid little jelly bean….

And if you aren’t familiar with adult tooth extractions, especially molars… let me tell you something. It’s not just a little visit going to a dentist where they give you anesthesia and pull the damn thing out. Nope: it’s full on anesthesia where they pull out your entire tooth and have to hammer away and break and pull out roots and everything — disgusting, painful, miserable, with plenty of lingering pain and after effects for days on end afterwards. It’s considered real oral surgery. The only reason I am even aware of this stuff is because my mom had to go through it, and she told me all the gory details that happened.

My poor baby…. well, my poor big baby Chris.

When your baby’s teething is so bad that she won’t eat anything

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“When a child refuses to eat, it can destabilize the whole family,” Solid Starts writes on their site.

Yep. That is so damn true.

I really enjoyed those weekend mornings throughout the summer and fall when I would sit with Kaia and introduce endless new foods to her. She was so curious, always willing to try and eat pretty much everything. Even the things she wasn’t a huge fan of then, like sweet potato, potato, avocado, banana, she happily eats now. I took endless videos of her eating and was so proud when again and again, she’d gobble up all her green vegetables and eat spicy chicken curry, dal, and everything else with lots of fervor. I thought I was doing all the right things to prevent picky eating. I was going to be the Super Mommy, the one whose baby loved to eat EVERYTHING. I HAD this, I thought to myself each day, preparing her a mini “tasting menu” for each meal as Chris called them.

And so, yes, it felt very destabilizing, if you want to call it that, to watch her suddenly, out of nowhere, start rejecting foods she always loved in December back in Australia. And it felt even more frustrating to watch it continue to happen after we got home this month. I just didn’t understand it: what the hell snapped in her in those weeks in Australia to suddenly have her turn on all the foods she once embraced? Was it really just the fact that she turned one year old, and thus overnight, developed opinions and preferences on what she wanted to eat or not…?! And now, coupled with endless teeth all seeming to pop up at once, she’s in pain, which makes her refuse even more food. Today at dinner, she didn’t eat a single thing and cried endlessly in her high chair. She even refused her favorite things, like rice noodles and blueberries. That’s when we REALLY knew it was teething and not just a preference for certain foods.

It made me feel so sad to see my baby not eat a single thing I had prepared for her, not to mention cry and yell nonstop. No parent wants to see their child go hungry, but for me, it was especially brutal because of how much I love food. And my stomach still wasn’t 100 percent today, so even I barely ate. It has not been a great start to the weekend — that’s for sure.