Posted by Monstermum on 15 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: BLW, Recipes of sorts
A fab easy lunch to whizz up in no time - pasta, peas & pesto. This may have been Monster’s first attempt at pesto but he ate it with gusto and only attacked the peas once most of the pasta was gone. yum!
Posted by Monstermum on 15 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: General
www.kensharp.com
Ken came round last week to take a few happy snaps of the Monster family. We were really pleased with the results. Probably no more expensive than Venture Studios to be honest but the photos are done in your own home / garden / local park.
It was great fun. Email me if you want to see the pics 
Posted by Monstermum on 08 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: BLW
I’ll have a P please Bob. And another. And another…. and so it goes on. Monster has discovered the joys of the lovely little round thing and boy are dinners going to be easy from now on
The pincer grip is coming along very nicely thank you very much although success rate is probably still under 50% so fun to watch! Tonight we did pasta (fusilli longhi) with peas and cream cheese. Dinner just went on and on and on!
Posted by Monstermum on 03 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: General
Well a friend of mine asked about toys recently and what Monster was into and when so I thought this might be interesting for others to read as they are coming through behind us. Here’s what I said:
A baby nest might be fun now he’s starting to get interested in sitting although it may be a few months before he can sit unaided. Monster was 6.5 months before he sat unaided and it was instant change on the toys front. We did get a bebepod / bumbo for him from 4-6 months so he could play sat up which really helped with the frustration. Rattles were good and things that they can grab onto easily as of course they can’t let go very well for a whie yet.
We got a baby wind chime from the charity shop - its by Baby Love but I’m sure others do something similar. Monster loved it and I’d often have it dangling above him or just in reach while he was sat up. Unfortunately, its not the best noise so it drove me crazy! We still have it attached to his playpen and he’ll bash them occasionally but that’s probably a toy that can be recycled now.
Monster didn’t play with anything except his babygym up to the 6 month mark really unless he sat on my lap and looked at books with me although he just wanted to chew those until about 8 months. Once he could sit up though, we ditched the baby gym and gots lots of texture type stuff, things with buttons to bash (see http://www.adamandclaire.co.uk
Oh, I’ve just rememebered the whoozit (http://www.amazon.co.uk
Monster has been crawling since Christmas pretty much so toys are so passe at the moment. He’s into shoes, standing & chattering to himself at his playpen, the dog’s water bowl and any gadget that someone has stupidly left lying around. Definitely not keen on toys that look like toys. I’ve just made him a treasure box which has everyday objects inside for him to discover - toothbrush, hairbrush, a tub with chickpeas in to shake, clothes peg, bottle stopper, lots of different textures and odd shapes.
Posted by Monstermum on 03 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: BLW
Well I know most people on the BLW forum can get a bit stressed about how much their LO might or might not be eating. I was there once so today I’ve get a bit more detailed log of the Monster and his food. It was a fairly typical day for being at home although when Monsterdad is around there does tend to be a bit of an eating competition going on 
Breakfast
About 1/4 oatibix. He didn’t eat much of this because I made it too soggy and I had raisin wheat so I had to share.
Close to 8/10 raisin wheat. He used to eat max of 5 so this is an improvement on pre-Christmas eating.
Snack
Mid-morning snack as he didn’t want his milk of2 organix crisp thingies. I happened to be eating them as they are now out of date so let him have a couple. He then went back & drank all his milk
Lunch
Stilton potatoes from last night’s dinner. He had the equivalent of a whole medium potato, there was some cheese still clung to it but probably not much in quantity terms as of course it was melted. With his potato he had 1/4 rice cake, a whole petit filou, a dried apricot cut into quarters and a few raisins / sultanas.
Snack
We are now doing snacks in the afternoon when we used to do afternoon tea. I still do afternoon tea sometimes but dinner tonight (if I get away from the computer!) so snack at 4.30pm. He had 2/3 organix crisp things, a dried apricot cut into quarters and probably half a dozen raisin / sultanas.
Dinner
Lamb stew with apricots, carrots, onions, garlic, the usual! It was morrocan style on the spice front. Bruno ate a rice cake dipped in the sauce too - he currently needs his rice cakes quite soggy as those teeth bite off chunks that are far too big to eat. He probably only had 1 chunk of carrot and a few chunks of lamb with the 1 rice cake but overall it topped off a fairly good day’s eating. He then had a few dried fruit bits.
In addition to the above, Monster also had half a litre of milk (that’s excluding the middle of the night feed!)
Posted by Monstermum on 01 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: BLW, Recipes of sorts
It is actually advised not to give babies mould ripened or soft cheese. I think the same rules when you’re pregnant apply to babies. No idea what the magic ages is for being allowed something as delicious as stilton but I decided it was 10 months and 1 week (we were given some ripe stilton, had loads of potatoes it seemed a natural conclusion).
So, how’d I make ‘em? Well, I boiled a load of tatties, bunged them in a dish, poured over some milk and sprinkled on the cheese with a bit of thyme. Covered the dish with foil and cooked it on ooh about 180c (we have a super duper new fan oven which cooks heard ‘n’ fast) for 45 minutes. I then took the foil off and cooked it until it was golden & crunchy enough on top for my taste. (I did say before I’m not great at writing recipes )
Monster devoured his potatoes and probably had the equivalent of a medium sized baked potato not to mention his first taste of the blue stuff. He hasn’t come down with listeriosis so it might be on the menu for lunch again today just to finish it off!
Posted by Monstermum on 26 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: BLW, General
Today was the day of the London BLW meet. Monster was very wise and had a nap before we set off. We were the first customers through the door with 3 other families in tow and another 2 turned up with the food.
Monster had a great time and ate all the gyozo and most of the chicken out of my chicken ramon. He wasn’t too impressed by the noodles though and they got swiftly flicked onto the floor in favour of more meat.
It was great to see other mums and very reassuring to see that everyone else’s LO ate similar amounts. It was also really fab to meet a BLWer-to-be and sell the idea. I hope I did good enough!
p.s. You can see the photos on our other website in the blog roll.
Posted by Monstermum on 24 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: BLW, Recipes of sorts
Well Monster had a lovely lunch today with his friend. Potatoes, corgette, trout, some apple rice cakes and some amazing banana pancake which Monster loved.
Monster really isn’t too keen on boiled / steamed potatoes. To be honest, he’s not that keen on roasties either. I guess they’re a bit bland compared to other amazing stuff like meat or fish. However, Monster ate most of his potato so a very good guest indeed
The trout was a new fish to try and he struggled with the flakes although did try to stuff his face with a fistful! He ended up letting me put tiny flake by tiny flake in his mouth. It’s so cute when he does that!
The corgette was completely avoided - its green, need I say more?!
The apple rice cakes were organix apple & cinnamon baby rice cakes. They tasted sweet & kind of sticky on top. Monster loved his and tried to swipe Zooey’s too! He’s learning bad habits at nursery, clearly!!
And then there was the banana pancake. Zooey’s mum made them with wholemeal flour, formula milk, mashed banana and egg. Just your normal pancake but with mashed banana too. They looked just like a thicker, darker pancake. Monster wolfed his down so I’m going to have to try this at home
Posted by Monstermum on 22 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: BLW
No not a comment about the price of eggs or some other such staple but how much food can this little boy shovel into his mouth and STILL drink loads of milk?!
Monster had a fantastic eating weekend.
We started off to a good start with toast & strawberry jam - a very rare treat for breakfast. Monster probably got through 3/4s of a normal slice. Then for lunch it was leftovers from last night so sausage with tomato bake and roast potatoes & carrots. Sausages are the new black don’t you know and Monster would probably eat a whole pig if in sausage form I know they’re salty so no more sausages for a month… We just had afternoon tea as we’d had a busy day so had some cheesy toasted bagels.
Bagels seem to be a fab baby bread - nice & chewy and very doughy. Ours were fresh from Brick Lane if you believe the market seller too! Monster loves his bread so really got stuck into his cheesy toasted one. It took him AGES but he ended up eating half a bagel which I was a bit miffed about as it was my half! I’m going to have to start buying for this hungry monster!!
Oh and he ate half a pear too;-)
So after that marathon, he’d probably not want any milk right? Well he guzzled his way through enough milk to start his own dairy. But he won’t eat tomorrow I thought - yeah right, it was roast beef!
So Sunday breakfast was a bit of a struggle - kitchen is semi-working but fridge has packed up so no milk for cereal and we need to eat those yummy bagels before they go stale… so a bit of cream cheese & the smoked mackerel that I didn’t eat the night before. Again I’m sharing my breakfast with Monster and I really need to learn not to - he ate all my fish 
And then there was roast dinner! My goodness, we’ve got a gannet. He’s clearly related to my cousins not me (sorry inside joke ) The roast beef was rather funny though. Poor Monster had a tough time - bad cook mummy had overcooked the beef so it was a tad on the tough side. He sat there for the best part of an hour tugging, chewing and using those new white pegs to rip at the beef. He wouldn’t leave even the tiniest crumb on the tray. Carnivore monster!!
So, all in all, a very bad baby weekend in terms of type of food eaten but wow, how much can a boy so small eat?!
PS Oh, and he had some peas & yorkie pud too
Posted by Monstermum on 22 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: BLW
Does this count as chocolate? I’ve no idea. Its clearly nasty baby jar stuff but for some reason nursery gave it to Monster. They say he loved it - well duh! its chocolate and he’s never had such yummy fatty sweet stuff. :-( I’m rather disappointed that I was his first chocolate giver but its done now.
Monster did love though apparently. He tried feeding himself with a spoon as is the nursery way, got frustrated and tried his hand, got even more frustrated and ended up just opening his mouth and demanding to be fed by a fast actioned spooner.
I guess I’ve really lightened up on the spoon-feeding thing as its kinda baby led in the sense that Monster will open his mouth and grunt until someone helps him out. Plus he doesn’t get purees so I’m fairly relaxed although do still wince a bit when nursery enthusiastically say we had to help him.