Tether for sippy cup

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Day 303 = December 30, 2010

Ron experimented with a sippy cup tether in hopes that Simon wouldn’t be able to toss his sippy cup to the ground. He looks kind of confused… and kind of funny because he has food on his face. Looks like he also has too much food in his bowl… taro bread, meatballs, and blueberries.

Looks like he is more interested in playing with the sippy cup tether than with eating.

We attending a private group cooking class tonight with a chef who works for Raw Satisfaction. Well, I was watching Simon while everyone else cooked.

When we are away from home it can be a challenge to entertain Simon when he doesn’t have his own toys. I am playing peek-a-boo with Simon around this sofa. He’s standing so straight and without much support, I keep on thinking he’ll walk soon but I don’t think he’s ready to let go yet.

I love how Simon is just leaning up against the chaise. He just looks like he’s relaxing (and watching TV).

These are the ingredients for the meal tonight.

These are like gnocchi but Mexican style (since the chef was from Mexico). It’s swiss chard, ricotta cheese, flour, eggs, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Pretty simple yet pretty tasty. It is topped with fried sage and sage butter and some cheese.

This is minestrone soup. Very hearty.

Bruschetta with roasted red beets and cheese. I love red beets but I’ve usually had the ones from the can or jar. The freshly roasted is so much better and so easy to make. You just cut off the ends, rub it in olive oil, put some salt and roast until tender. Then you peel and slice how you like it.

After a while, Simon got really tired and cranky so fell asleep when I rocked him in a dark corner of the room. I couldn’t finish my dinner while holding him so we fashioned this bed on the sofa and barricaded him in so that if he woke up, he wouldn’t roll off on the floor.

The main course of the night was spaghetti with spicy sausage, cauliflower, and celery.

We also had a date and walnut cake that didn’t finish baking by the time the chef had to leave. It is supposed to have an orange ricotta topping. We had to go home early to put Simon to bed and myself since I am going to work in the morning for a few hours. A last minute decision but for the safety of our patients.

The verdict on the cooking class? It took much longer than anticipated and it can be hard when it’s not your own kitchen so you don’t have all the supplies necessary. The only really unique recipe was the gnocchi but the rest the chef was following from printouts. Don’t get me wrong, they were delicious but the gnocchi outshone all the others. He said it was his family’s recipe so that also made it extra special. I’m not sure if it’s something we would do again but it was an interesting experience with friends.

Wheezing and trip to pediatrician

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Day 302 = December 29, 2010

Simon made this funny sour face this morning. At least I know he can pucker up, maybe we can teach him to “blow kisses”?

He didn’t seem that interested in eating this morning. He preferred to play with the lid of his snack container. He has also stopped taking food from a spoon.

In the afternoon, Ron went with Simon to his parents’ office to pick up some frozen breastmilk. With Simon being sick and his loss of interest in food, he seems to be drinking more milk and my milk production has also decreased. I’m glad I was able to store quite a bit in the early months but I’m afraid that will run out before his first birthday… but we’ll see. We’ve used up all our supply in our freezer so Ron went to get more from their chest freezer. But while there, Ron noticed that Simon had some wheezing so he called the Kaiser advice nurse who recommended Simon be checked out so set up an appointment in the late afternoon for Simon. At the pediatrician’s office, he weighed in at 22 lbs! It’s really time to upgrade his car seat. He’s almost grown out of the weight limit of the infant car seat. At the doctor visit, Simon’s oxygen saturation was still 100% so the wheezing wasn’t his breathing, more likely just congestion and phlegm. His lungs sounded fine so the doctor just recommended to continue with the cool humidifier, saline nasal rinses, and use the bulb syringe even if he protests. I’m sad that my little man is still sick. I wish I could teach him how to blow his own nose and how to cough more productively. Though I am glad that he hasn’t had a fever at all and still seems pretty active.

Squinting

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Day 301 = December 28, 2010

Simon has pretty chubby (and muscular?) legs. His weight is mostly in his lower body, in his belly and legs.

Simon is loving his blueberries again. Daddy Ron gave him a whole bowl full in hopes that he would eat all of it… instead, he decided to play with them and scoop them out of the bowl onto the tray and on the floor. Here he is all innocent looking before he starts to play with them.

As I mentioned yesterday, Simon has been squinting when we focus the camera at him and also has been mimicking us when we squint at him. He looks like he’s having so much fun.

Ron made a little video of Simon in action.

We still haven’t been able to get a good picture of Simon’s new teeth. He keeps on moving around and complaining when we try to open his mouth to look inside. Along with his continued runny nose and cough, he is still drooling quite a lot. His old cloth bibs are now only useful for meals. We need to get some more of the bigger bibs with the waterproof lining so he doesn’t soak through them as fast.

Big appetite

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Day 300 = December 27, 2010

Even with a terrible cough, Simon had a pretty good big appetite today. For breakfast he had a quarter of Parmesan cheese bagel, 1 oz fruit compote (pear, apple, and prunes), some freeze dried bananas and strawberries, and a large handful of blueberries.

Simon has been squinting whenever I focus on the camera on him. I wonder if he thinks he is being cute?

These are the only pictures I have of him today was we spent the late morning and afternoon out and about. We went to visit Grandpa Tam in Oakland and had lunch with him. At lunch, he had a few small pieces of Korean bulgogi, some sliced carrots and zucchini, puffs, blueberries, rice, and some more fruit compote. He didn’t eat as much since he was distracted in the restaurant but did pretty good. We then went for a bit of shopping so around 3pm he got really hungry again and had a snack of blueberries and puffs. I let Simon play with his container of puffs and somehow he lost it. At least he finished them all before it was lost. But he has been sleeping since about 6pm and hasn’t had a proper dinner. This means we’re likely going to wake up in the early morning to a hungry crying baby. I don’t have the heart to wake him up right now since he didn’t nap all that much today and he had a rough night of sleep again. He woke up throughout the night and finally woke up for the day around 7am and then only had a nap from 10-10:30am and 12-1pm for the whole day. Then he got dragged around by mommy all day so no wonder he’s tired. He actually woke himself up around 7pm but when I tried to feed him dinner, he just kept on fussing and crying and rubbing his eyes. He was obviously still tired so I ended up holding him and bouncing him to sleep. He’s been asleep since. Poor guy is still sick so I wanted to comfort him but I hope it doesn’t lead to bad habits.

Sippy Cup

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Day 299 = December 26, 2010

Poor Simon has a runny nose. He did not sleep well at all last night. I think he woke up four times. I lost track because I was also very tired. He still has the cough and now he has a runny nose.

Surprisingly he has not lost his appetite. Today he tried the freeze dried blueberries and I’m not sure if he likes them. You can hear him chomp and it and crush them, they are quite fragile. He’s giving me this look here, saying “Don’t bother me, I’m eating”.

“Aw, shucks!”

We have started to try to transition Simon to a sippy cup and he is very slow to take to it. He likes to drink from a cup but that can get very messy if he pulls the cup towards him and we also have to hold the cup for him and tip it into his mouth. We’ve tried many variations of cups: ones with a nipple, the straw with valve type, the straw without valve type, the ones with a spout with valve, juice boxes, straws, water bottles, and now these disposable ones that also have a valve (but not that secure as it can still leak).

I think Simon knows to smile now when he sees the camera. Here he is actually sucking to drink the water but gets distracted when he sees I’m trying to take a picture of him. He seems to be slowly taking to these cups but when he’s feeling fussy, he just won’t have it and wants to drink from the bottle or a regular cup. I hope he won’t be one of those babies that won’t be able to be weaned from the bottle. I think we’ll have to try some breastmilk in the sippy cup to see if he would be more likely to drink from it. Maybe he just doesn’t like water.

Since we thought that Simon was having some indigestion and possible constipation, I cooked him up some apples, pears, and prune stew. He’s taken again to eating from a spoon (thank goodness!) and into trying new things. He ate some of this today and he did poop twice. Actually when he has been pooping, it’s usually 2 to 3 times a day now. I hope he’s absorbing enough nutrients. He’s tried some new foods recently too: whole wheat buns and fish balls (like the ones used for hot pot).

We went on a Costco run today and surprisingly it wasn’t busy there at all. We needed to stock up on food since our refrigerator and freezer is pretty empty. We also had to pick up some food for Simon since he can’t eat everything we do. But his front teeth are starting to show so I hope that means we’ll be able to worry less about what he can chew. Simon got his wish of all he wanted for Christmas were his two front teeth. We weren’t able to take a good picture since he’s been struggling when we touch his mouth and nose area (because of his cold) but we’ll try again soon so we can show off his little chompers. Here he is sporting his super cute hoodie. It may actually be too warm as he keeps on trying to take it off.

For Simon we picked up cheese, fresh blueberries, tilapia, and bagels. We figured we should try some new fish as he doesn’t like many other proteins right now except cheese. We’ll see how he takes to tilapia in the next few days.