Robin Artemis photo gallery

Food, eighth month, 11 November - 11 December, 2011

Food! I think when I did Robin's pages for the previous month I'd lost track of what food he was having at the time. In his seventh month it was mostly grains, gentle ones, with most fruit and vegetables. Now in his eighth month it was any fruit and vegetables that he showed interest in or that we had, any kind of grain, and we introduced legumes and vegetable proteins.

One day what we had was lemons. Robin was very keen to give them a go.

But while he seemed to like the first suck or two, it then got a bit much. The lemon was vigorously removed from the picture.

Cereal. These were some nice multi-grain cereal flakes I'd found, made with sorghum, millet and barley instead of the usual corn and wheat. Which I thought sounded nice. But they'd been made in such a way that they stayed crispy and didn't go soft no matter how long they sat in water or milk, so they just ended up being scratchy and tickly on his throat and he quickly decided they weren't for him. Totally understandable when you don't have working teeth.

Cherries! I suddenly realised it was cherry season, and the cherries were really quite nice. Robin agrees. He could gum on a piece of cherry for ages. I had to start checking his mouth for things he was still working on before giving him a breastfeed, as he'd try and chew the nipple too if there was anything solid in his mouth already.

Red lentils! I think this might be the first serving of legumes he'd tried. He really got into them with gusto. I think he's a protein kid. I'd also had my suspicions that he was really after heavier food than just grains and vegies by now, so it was the right time to bring them in. I had only held off so long because he still chucks up so much. This was a red-lentil-couscous-and-garlic mash and both kids loved it to bits.

Robin is having blueberries and pasta for lunch. He thinks this is great. The basket of lemons is there for me to brew lemonade with, I got them at the Altona food-and-garden swap, but I hadn't got to it yet. It was quite nice when I did, the lemonade came out quite pleasant. I am losing my liking for the commercial soft drinks, they seem way too sweet now.

Strawberries are still such an awesome food. And he's getting better at picking up bits of food and getting them to his mouth.

He ate more bread this month than I might have otherwise chosen - I think I gave Sparrow bread a little later - but it was an easy food, he liked it and he could hold it and we didn't have to worry about him choking on it. I did a bit of "this is the easiest" decision making this month because of the egg donation cycle and associated tiredness. I did have to keep an eye out for old bits of bread that had got put down and forgotten about, though. Sometimes the forgotten bits of bread were still on his face. I do like him wearing yellow.