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2005-06-20 - 2.11pm previous entry next entry
First day of baby-led weaning!
Just a quick entry while Arthur finishes his nap. Toooooooo hot. Yuck. Also I am still not well, which double sucks in the heat. I don't know what to do with Arthur when it's this hot and humid. Neither of us are enjoying it one bit. He has a little bit of heat rash behind one ear and some on his neck, poor sausage. AND he has been without clothes for 2 days! I only put him in a nappy now and then, like for nap time so that he doesn't wet the bed. At least he doesn't have too bad of a nappy rash at the moment. I try to keep him aired! He is the sweatiest baby I have ever encountered! I thought Cameron was sweaty (mind you, he REALLY was), but Arthur is worse. He just hates the heat, like Mummy. Bleurgh.
We have had the fan on all day and all night, but it's only like an office desk-top fan and it has to be on Arthur all the time or else he just sweats big beads and gets cranky. So I'm melting while he naps! Horrid heat. I don't think I could bear to put him in the car seat, clothed or not, so that leaves us rather stranded. There is no way either of us could tolerate a sling! I guess we could go out with the 3-wheeler, but then that's just something for him to sweat against, and something for me to overheat pushing around and getting in the sun more than I want to. It sounds rather pathetic, but when the summer gets hot and humid, I mostly spend each day in the house not moving very much, just trying to make it through the day to the evening, and then being wakeful and overheated all night till the few hours of slight coolness in the early morning. And then it all starts over again. It's just too much for me. I sleep so crappily in the hot weather, even without an equally hot and wakeful baby! I wish I was a hot weather person. But maybe then I wouldn't love love love winter and snuggly cold weather so much!! I wish for Arthur's sake he was a hot weather person too. But I do know he loves the winter, and isn't phazed by being too cold at all. He always seemed to enjoy the cold air when he was tiny and new.
Happy happy though, because Wimbledon tennis started today! Yay! :) It doesn't get very interesting till next week though. It makes me want to sip a tall glass of cold fizzy drink with a lemon slice on the rim. Ahhh.
Yesterday, true to my word, we ditched the purees and started baby-led weaning! Yay! Neil and I had leftovers of the lamb and vegetable gratin for lunch, and since we had mashed potato with it, we decided to make Arthur some mashed potato (instead of the original plan of having chicken and mashed potato together) and put a bit of it on my plate for him. For his mashed potato, I mashed it the same amount as for an adult, same consistency, and pumped maybe an ounce of breastmilk while it cooked, to mix in with it. Then we all sat down on the blanket on the floor (covered with a sheet!) to eat. Neil and I ate off lap trays so that Arthur could sit right up close to us without any pressure to start with. I put his bowl of mashed potatoes on my tray, but I also put some potato on my plate for him to grab at too. Also he wasn't even wearing a nappy, which made it a lot easier for clean-up time!
The first thing I found was that Arthur STILL preferred to grab the food on my plate that he wasn't supposed to have! Also I should have been careful about that, as it was hot (not burning) and I didn't catch his hand in time once so he got his hand on my food and looked a bit shocked and like he might cry, because it was too hot. It didn't burn him, thank goodness. I need to be way more careful. I felt bad about it.
But we ate our dinner, and I ended up piling mine nearer and nearer to me on the plate, hehe! And guarding it with my hand! So that wasn't how we intended it, but oh well. He put his hand in his potato and looked really disgusted to have got himself messy! Then after that he played with it more and more. He didn't put his hand anywhere near his mouth though, and we had almost finished our meal and were about to give up and wipe him down, when suddenly he put a potatoey thumb in his mouth and made curious tasting faces! We did not make a big thing of it, because he somehow seems more put off trying food when we make a big deal out of it. I think that's partly why he hasn't wanted to eat so far.
Anyway after that his hand went back and forth, back and forth, from plate to mouth! He didn't actually ingest much, because he mostly just tasted his fingers, and he gagged a fair bit on a couple of tiny lumps. But that didn't seem to put him off at all, as he put his hands back in his mouth right afterwards.
Of course mashed potato got EVERYWHERE! The sheet went straight in the wash. Arthur went straight in the bath! After he finished with the potato, he used his potatoey hands to fiddle with his hair, ears, and toes, and then (he was sitting the whole time), he suddenly realised if he looked down he could SEE his bits!! He only ever fiddled with them lying down during a nappy change before, so this seemed to be a real eureka moment, hehe! Of course they got covered with potato! I wish I could show you the last photo we took, of Arthur with a huge grin at the camera, potato on every single part of his body, including his lil bits, hehehe! But yeah, it's too nudie for here.
But here are two that you may see :)
I have more I want to write, but Arthur is awake and I'm nearly a puddle, so I will finish here and maybe do another entry again soon. I think I am getting my period tomorrow. Pfthth. Will update soon.
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