Pizza! Again! (29th April)

I successfully made my own pizzas from scratch. This pizza had a tiny bit of puree, then thinslices of beef tomatoes, thin slices of carrot (I grated slices off it) and a bit of mature cheddar, paprika and basil sprinkled on top.

I think that face says I can make it again.

It was beautiful and I'm proud of myself for sneaking some carrot in there.

Still struggling with breakfast (28th April)

So someone on Mumsnet suggested pancakes for breakfast, so I made some up with a wee bit of ginger and cinnamon in the batter. I decided scotch pancakes would be easier to hold. I also fried some blueberries in pineapple juice to have with them.

He did like them, but lost interest quickly. To be honest, I think he's just too tired to be larking about with food. He usually naps just after breakfast and when he's tired he doesn't like to do much.

Here he is resolutely not eating his pancakes.

I ate them instead. Waste not want not.

Banana is back in fashion (25th April)

He finds it easier to grab now, so doesn't shun it anymore.

He will shove the whole damned thing in his mouth if he could.

Lamb Bolognese (24th April)

Another homemade treat. I thought it was bloody tasty. I actually put some effort into this and it paid off. I gave it to him with fusilli instead of spaghetti because I think he would just get frustrated with spaghetti.

This smile reflects what he thought of it.

Oh yes, it was tasty.

Greek Salad (20th April)

Aside from the fact that he clearly thinks fruit and veg are more hassle than they are worth, Theo has inherited my taste in food.

Even with this in mind, I thought he would shun the salad because it has vegetables - and is therefore a waste of time - but it went down well. I think this is possibly because it has cheese in it. He did leave the peppers though (he's never liked them) and he tried an olive, but pulled a face and left them well alone after that.

Food is fun! (19th April)

I can't even remember what this was, but I decided I would let him have the bowl for a laugh.

Metro fish restaurant

I went out for the day with my parents (to a garden centre, as me and Mike want to grow many herbs and vegetables) and on the way back we stopped off at at fish and chip cafe type place. It's a posh chippy. I had fishcakes, which Theo loved and my mum had a fish medley type thing, so Theo got some prawns and smoked salmon, which also went down well.

He also liked the cheque tray.

Mummy's homemade corned beef hash (14th April)

It's nice when my cooking is appreciated, and he thought it was fab. Maybe a little bit too salty (it has beef stock in it, and corned beef is saltalicious), but I don't make it too often and I've recently found low salt stock. Winner.

He's so happy with that beef squishing through his fingers, bless.

Picnic! (11th April)

The weather was nice and my friends invited us out for a picnic, so we packed up tasty foods and went to Heaton Park.

Theo ended up being boring and having cheese sandwiches, ham sanwiches, houmous on ryvita and philadelphia on ryvita. Here he is chilling twixt all the food.

Later we all got 99s. I felt a bit bad about Theo not having any, and he clearly wanted some. I'm fairly sure it's on the list of things not for babies, but I play fast and loose with these rules anyway, so I let him have a lick.

Cute. Fact.

More spoonfeeding (lazy mummy) (9th April)

More heinz stuff from a tin (spaghetti this time). It's just quicker to spoonfeed him, as BLW is obviously more fun for him, but he will sit there larking about for half an hour, whereas if I'm in a hurry, spoonfeeding takes maybe ten minutes.

I'm trying to find excuses, if you couldn't tell.

Anyway, he had to have it in his nappy because his nappy leaked and he has bath and bed after he eats, so there was no point putting him in something new just for it to get messy.

Pasta is up there with bread in Theo's world, so he ate almost half a tin.

I did consider giving him his tea like this from now one as he is wipe clean. His clothes aren't.

Mummy attempts spoonfed breakfast. Hilarity ensues (9th April)

He really doesn't like breakfast much. Takes after his Daddy.

I, however, think it's the most important meal of the day, and he needs to get into the routine of having breakfast. So here he is with some heinz baby porridge with peaches.

May as well have been shit. He refused to eat it, but had a lot of fun playing with it.

"I'm going to drop it mummy!"

You can see here that the bowl has ended up in the graveyard of unwanted food.
It ended up on the floor.

The tins and spoons come out

Whoo! it's been a while. I blame the new phone. So I have a lot of catching up to do.

This was on the 6th of April.

I know, I know. it's in a jar. It's not for tiny fingers to pick up, but I was in a rush.

obviously he loved it. He ate loads and loads and loads, which makes me worry unnecessarily about whether he is getting enough food with BLW. *sigh*

Eventually spoon guilt got me and I gave him some on a ryvita. In Theo's world ryvita makes everything better, so it went down a treat.

Tomato and macaroni

This was most enjoyable, but extremely frustrating for him. In hindsight, macaroni is a really bad pasta to give to a baby. He couldn't grab it because it was too small and slippy. I eventually gave him a spoon with sauce on it so he could get some.

He went for a more direct method after grabbing it didn't work.

He needed a bath after.

Next time I'll use fusilli. Larger and easier to grab methinks.

Sunday dinner

Went to Grandma and Grandpa's for Sunday dinner (on a monday) and Theo was on top form. He had some beef, some yorkshire pudding, many green beans (ok 3, but that's a lot for him) and, ahem, a chocolate lolly. Still counts as Easter.

He shoved the whole damned lolly in his mouth, and then it broke off the stick. I thought he would choke, but no, he soldiered on with this chuck of chocolate until it had all melted. He did dribble a lot of it out, but he had a lot of it. No more chocolate now I think.

Easter Sunday at great Nana's

Yes that is a chocolate bunny. It's Easter, sue me.

He didn't eat it all, but he damn well enjoyed it.

Cheesy baby

I made macaroni cheese from scratch. Get me. Theo liked it, but I don't think he found cheesy enough. Most ended up being rubbed into his face. He smelt of cheese for the rest of the day.

Houmous at Nana and Grandad's

Nana doesn't really like the idea of BLW, (she's been supportive though, which is nice) but she seemed suitably impressed by him making his way through a good chunk of ryvita (ble) and houmous.

He had mini corn as well, but houmous is tastier, so he shunned it.

Mini corn

Let's face it, only weirdos don't like mini corn. Theo isn't weird; likes mini corn.

He showed no interest in the cheese.

Unusual lunch

Today I made banana on toast for Theo and I had a bacon sandwich. While he waited for his toast I gave him some rice crackers which he just threw off the high chair.

Then he had the banana on toast, but he didn't want it and just threw it off as well.

I gave him some bacon and he nibbled a bit and then threw it on the floor.

Ho hum.

He has spent all day pulling faces because he has a new tooth, so that might be why he wasn't interested in lunch.

Cheeky Little Monkey!

Me and Uncle and Theo went to my parents so I could use their shower and uncle could use their printer and I took along tuna sandwiches for packed lunch.

Tuna can be added to the list of fish that Theo likes. I'm starting to think he has definitely inherited my taste in food. Hopefully he hates ketchup and baked beans as much as I do, so I don't have to have them in the house. Mike hates fish, so he clearly got that from me.

Then again, he could just enjoy anything as long as it's on wheat based products.

Later I was at home and Theo was having a bit of a fuss, so was sat on my knee whilst I ate a packet of chocolate buttons. Now, young babies are not meant to have chocolate because it's an allergen, however Theo clearly didn't get the memo. As per usual he watched me eating them with great interest and kept trying to grab them from me. I picked on from the bag and was distracted by the telly for a few seconds. In those few seconds he lunged at the button and bloody well sucked it from my fingers! By the time I had him turned around and tried to fish it out, it had melted. He looked very damn pleased with himself. Cheeky monkey!

Note to self. Do not trust baby around chocolate ever again.

NESW. Never Eat Shredded Wheat. Or not.

Theo was getting bored of weetabix for breakfast, and it was so damned messy that I decided to change breakfast cereal. On Sunday I bought some mini shredded wheat for Monday morning and as you can see, it was most enjoyable to Theo. I just soaked them in a bit of formula so they were a bit soft and less bland.

I also invested in Ryvita (horrid stuff in my opinion) and he had a good old time eating Philadelphia and Ryvita (also smearing it all over his pram)

He had more cucumber for his gums and it made him happy.

We had lamb chops and homemade hash browns for tea and the less said about the hash browns the better (Mike said they were tasty, but he may have just been lying to make me feel better)

As the hash browns were a disaster I just gave him a piece of lamb. He liked it, but it proved too difficult for Theo to swallow, so he ended up gagging and bringing it all backup.

I'm starting to think all he knows how to chew and swallow is bready things with stuff on top.

Here he is with the lamb (it was a really nice bit as well and he just dropped most of it in his pram)

"I'll have the Penne All' Arribiata." "You'll need a tray."

Friday found us once again in Bolton. I was bored and gatecrashed lunch with my parents, and decided to try a new Italian place called Prosecco (not actually new, just a revamp, anyway)

As per, I had the penne all'arribiata and gave a few pieces to Theo. It was quite spicy but that didn't stop Theo from chomping away at the pieces of pasta. He rubbed sauce all over his face, but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures.

On saturday we headed off to a friend's house for cheese and wine and Theo had a few plain crackers and a bite of cracker with cheese on it. it was gorgonzola. I have a feeling that I did a bad thing giving him blue cheese, but it was a tiny wee bit and I think it mostly ended up on his top.

He did like it though. (Ha Mike! He likes blue cheese! In. Your. Face.)

He also munched through a stick of cucumber which went down a treat, but I think that may be because he is still teething badly and it was cool on his gums.

After he had had a bit of a munch I put a bit of houmous on the stick he was holding and that confused him a bit, but in a good way because he sucked all the houmous off.

He had nothing new on Sunday, though he tried his damnedest to chew through the box of Mike's easter egg.

Sushi!

Bought some sushi today from M&S. Theo loved it, though I don't think any of it actually went down. He just munched and dropped rice everywhere and dribbled rice everywhere and had a lot of fun.

Sushi face!

He had mango for pudding and he made his way through a whole half stick (with only a little bit falling on his top)

Later on he had some melon and pineapple and that made him happy as well. Although the pineapple was a bit hit and miss.

Bloody teething

Theo scared the bejesus out of me yesterday by being very out of sorts all day. In a bit of a panic I took him to the walk in centre. All is well, he is just teething big style.

Needless to say I felt like a tool bothering the nurses over bloody teething (PFB much?) but she said it was fine and as long as I felt reassured then I wasn't wasting their time.

Anyway, she said they can have trouble weaning, and he currently is having trouble drinking from his bottle because of the pain in his gums, so I'm trying to give him foods I know he likes and that I think he will enjoy chewing on.

Currently this is his usual breakfast weetabix.

No idea what I'm going to give him for lunch though.

Weekend foods

Friday was Pizza Express Day.

He had a munch on some organix rice cakes (I'm thinking it was a mistake to get him these as he likes them a bit too much) before I handed over some pizza. It was quattro formaggi (sp?), so cheese and tomato on toast, essentially. Needless to say he loved it and munched away until all that as left was a soggy bit of crust.

Saturday he had crumpets for breakfast and the liked them a lot. Unfortunately they didn't like him and he gagged a lot. I suppose it's the texture he struggled with.

That night I made dinner for my parents. I made french onion soup; chicken stuffed with cheese (stilton or goats cheese, I made two of each because Mike hates Stilton) wrapped in parma ham with sweet potato mash; and sticky toffee pudding (I left that up to Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding Company, though the rest was from scratch)

Theo was feeling tired so just joined us for the soup (had to soak it in bread so he could hold it) Soup was a success.

On Sunday he had weetabix for breakfast and crumpets. Again he gagged on the crumpets, so we'll have to abandon them for the time being, which is a shame because he really liked them.

He had more soup for lunch as well as feta in pitta bread as well as some onions from the soup. He wasn't interested in the feta pittas, but the pitta soaked in soup and the onions went down a treat.

For dinner we went to Grandma and Grandpa's. He had honeydew melon, which he has decided isn't half bad, strawberry (tasty) melba toast, yorkshire pudding, and *sigh* mashed carrot (less said about that the better) and ice cream.

Tonight we are looking forward to chicken fajitas made by Daddy. Om nom nom.

Oh yes, I have been trying to get him to eat broccoli for over a week now, but every time he gets hold of it, he just waggles it about. Yesterday he finally had a bit of a lick, and was totally uninterested. I was actually a bit saddened because I as convinced he would love it.

Heaton Park

So we headed off to Heaton Park with a friend with our little picnic. I've been missing out. Heaton Park is amazing. Theo had a lot of fun looking at the animals. We found a nice spot to eat. Here is Theo waggling a carrot about. He wasn't too fussed about eating it.

Previous forays into meat eating have not gone too well for Theo, but he was very happy with his roast chicken, though he got cold and fussy after a while so we went for a walk to look at the animals.

We went off to Slattery's to warm up with cake and tea. I was hungrier than I thought, so got a cream cheese and salmon bagel instead of cake. Theo liked licking the cucumber from the garnish. He was in high spirits as you can see.

After consulting my memory, I figured he would be ok with smoked salmon (think it's only shark, marlin, swordfish and shellfish that they can't eat, and neither me nor DH are allergic)

He obviously takes after mummy and loved it. We'll have to work very hard to keep Theo in smoked salmon.

"Mummy, that man over there has purple shoes!"