I’ve been asked several times recently about finger food ideas for older babies. Here are some of my favorites to help you think outside the Cheerios box:

*Well cooked chopped broccoli florets
*Avocado chunks (very nutritious!)
*Small cut up chunks of cherry or grape tomatoes
*Cooked peas and carrots mix (easy to take a handful out of the freezer and microwave)
*Raw frozen peas (thaw them under running water)
*Well cooked, peeled, and diced potatoes or sweet potatoes
*Whole grain toast sticks/ bites
*Whole grain pancake or waffle pieces/ sticks (cut up extras you have and keep them on hand in the freezer) – great to “dip” in pureed fruit!!
*Chunks of firm tofu (I wouldn’t eat it, but my daughter ate them just fine!)
*Chopped up hard boiled eggs or pieces of scrambled eggs
*Small pieces of ripe pears, bananas, oranges, mango, peaches, kiwi, etc.
*Sliced berries

Other Suggestions

*I tried to keep my kids’ snacks as fresh as possible and help them develop a taste for fruits, vegetables, and good quality protein. If you look in the “toddler foods” section, all of the snacks seem to be variations on crackers and cookies. No kid has trouble liking those! Go against the flow and give your kid something truly nutritious!
*I avoided juice as long as possible. I’ve never met a kid who didn’t like juice, and I wanted to make sure they were drinking plenty of water and milk. When I did start juice, I used fresh juice from our juicer (next point!)
*Juicers are great! AG’s favorite juice was ABC juice – Apple, Beets, and Carrots! There is no way I’m cooking beets for dinner, but at least she could get the nutrients from them! :)
*As they get older, smoothies are easy to make and you can stick all kinds of stuff in them. Yogurt, milk, fruit, flax seed meal, cinnamon, protein powder, etc!

**Side note on whole grains.**
I often hear people say that their kid “won’t eat” whole grain breads, etc. If that’s all they ever know, they’ll eat it! Make healthy food the norm for your family and it isn’t really an issue.

I highly recommend The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood by Sears. Great ‘primer’ for parents on basic good nutrition principles.

If you thought I was crazy and tuned me out about the cloth diapers, stick with me here – seriously! This is NOT hard.

I made a whole bunch of carrots into food for LB this weekend. I bought a 5lb bag of carrots for $2.99 and ended up with 36 servings of baby food. Not too shabby considering that if I had bought the Gerber carrots in the cute little plastic containers I would have spent $18.00 for that much! Yikes!

So, here’s what to do: (it’s very complicated) :)

Get some vegetables or fruit
Cook them until they’re soft
Puree them in a blender or food processor
Freeze them in ice cube trays
Pop them into plastic bags

Presto! Tricky, isn’t it?

Most people seem to feel more comfortable with the little jars and containers for some reason, so I will answer some frequently asked questions below.

1. How do you know what to feed them?
*Go to the grocery store and look at the “level one” foods. What are they? Buy them. Cook them. Repeat the steps above. You can even buy one jar to check the consistency if it makes you feel more comfortable. Trust me, Gerber does not have some magic formula for carrots. They use: carrots!
*If you want a book that spells out what to do when and gives you some ideas, I love “First Meals” by Annabel Karmel. I also like www.wholesomebabyfood.com.

2. Does it take a lot of time?
*NO. It will take some time to cook each large batch (10-20 minutes for most things), as well as to puree it in the blender/ food processor and pour into the trays (again, 10-15 minutes).

3. Does it really make that big of a difference?
*YES. Here are my top reasons:
a. TASTE – have you ever tasted jarred baby food vegetables? Every kind I have tasted like dirt! Making your own actually allows your baby to eat vegetables that taste good! You can also mix the “cubes” for a variety of flavors. My daughter liked apples and carrots, pears or bananas with avocado, etc. I throw in different varieties of baby cereal and formula to tone down strong flavors or change the texture.
b. Ease of transition to other foods – once they are ready for ‘chunkier’ foods, just do a quick, coarse puree and freeze them in ice cube trays (or I have found that silicone muffin cups work great once they start eating larger servings). Once they’re ready for finger foods, just chop them into chunks and freeze them. As they get older, start grinding/ mashing up whatever you’re eating for dinner, and they automatically learn to eat what the rest of the family eats. I usually will pull a portion out before I add salt, etc.
c. Nutrition – You know what’s in the food, and what isn’t. You know there isn’t any added salt, sugar, or preservatives. It hasn’t been sitting on a store shelf for 2 years. Want organic? Buy organic veggies. It’s all up to you!
d. Cost – as I mentioned above, it is seriously MUCH cheaper to make your own.

4. Is it a pain to take with you?
*You do have to plan ahead a tad more than with jarred food. Here’s my system:
a. If we’ll be at a friends’ house or anywhere where a microwave is easily accessible, I just put 2-3 frozen cubes in a covered plastic bowl and warm it up at their house.
b. If we’re shopping or at the zoo or something, I have a small baby food grinder (mine is a “happy baby” grinder) that packs away in the diaper bag. Bring easy to make ‘instant’ purees like bananas. Sometimes if I know I will be at a restaurant I bring the grinder and order unseasoned steamed veggies and grind it up at the table.
c. For long road trips and stuff I buy the jarred kind, but my daughter wouldn’t really eat them. The first time I licked her spoon (a habit I developed at home) I knew why – YUCK!

Next time you’re wandering down the baby isle, ask yourself:
*Why does 3.5 oz of peas that look gross cost so much, and how long have they been on the shelf?
*Why are “fruit and vegetable puffs” considered a healthy food choice? Why can’t we give them fruits and vegetables as finger foods, rather than teaching them that everything should taste like crackers?
*Why wouldn’t most kids be picky eaters as they get older, if the majority of what they “cut their teeth” on comes out of a box with a cartoon character on it? Why not take them to the produce section instead? Just a thought. :)

Staying at home has been a sacrifice in some ways, but it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice when I think about what I would miss!

“When the girl screams, when the boy cries, when I’m feeling mad,
I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don’t feel so bad!”
[you have to imagine Julie Andrews singing that and spinning around in some homemade curtains]

Some of my favorite things:
*Quiet mornings when the kids wake up on their own, all happy and smiley and excited to eat breakfast together. (“and you come sit in this chair by me?”)
*Playing a game of “hi ho cherrio” inbetween loads of laundry
*Scrubbing the bathtub on my knees and suddenly feeling little arms wrap around my waist and hearing AG say, “I love you, Mommy” completely unprompted
*Having AG link arms with me and look up to me and say, “We’re best friends.”
*Taking a picnic to the park just because it’s a nice day and we wouldn’t want to waste it
*Reading stacks of books with no reason that we have to stop
*Stopping at the library or getting Wendy’s chicken nuggets or going to Petsmart as a special surprise while we’re running errands. I will never get tired of hearing delighted squeals over little things.
*Pulling Biblical lessons out of every day stuff – lately we have been discussing “encourage one another,” and the tight writing on “Word World” has been giving us some good discussion points!! :)
*Having “inside jokes” with my toddler and always knowing what random little thing she’s referring to.
*Times when AG purposely makes a joke that honestly makes me belly laugh!
*Quiet playtime with LB before his nap. AG’s already in bed, and we pull out the toys and have floor time. He likes to grab my face and try to eat my chin!
*Knowing that I know my children better than anyone else (well, besides God and their Dad!), and they will never, NEVER start to call someone else “Mommy”

Image from wikipedia

Three pairs of dirty underwear in the diaper pail. And one swimsuit.

Three occasions with dialogue summarized as:
“Did you poop in your panties? Why didn’t you tell me?!?”
“Look! That is gross! Here is a wipe- clean that up off the floor.”
“You are not in trouble because you had an accident. You are in trouble because you didn’t tell me. You were hiding it from me, and that is being deceitful.”

Clean underwear. Hugs. Reiterating the lesson learned. (or not learned, as the case has been.)

Yesterday I was having a hard time letting it go. The kid was making me nuts. She was deliberately not telling me she had to go, and then hoping I wouldn’t find out. After we had dealt with the clean up and consequences the last time, I was still ticked. I found myself being distant and short with her… giving the cold shoulder to my toddler (how mature, Mom.)

And then the Lord tapped me on the shoulder. I have a list of character qualities, one for each day of the month, that I use to pray for my children. Of course, yesterday’s was mercy! So, as I was being petty and distant and trying to show her that I was mad at her, the Lord whispered to my heart, “What are you teaching her? Is this what mercy looks like?”

Nope. I’m teaching her to be petty and begrudging and mean. Is there a problem with that?

And so it goes… it is amazing how God works out the process of sanctification in our lives. Sometimes even with poop and Elmo underwear.

“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Luke 6:36