Go Bananas

In my latest attempts at frugality as a stay-at-home-mom I've been stopping by the grocery store most mornings after taking my husband to work. It's right next to the house and super convenient so we stop most mornings and check out their close-out sections. The produce is what interests me, you see - they put all the stuff that's ripe and needing to be eaten that day on that close-out shelf and mark it 'priced to sell' - and it's a ton of stuff. I usually take it home and cook with it that day, or I just pop it in the freezer. This morning I got pounds upon pounds of bananas. What to do with all these bananas? Well the obvious - baby food. Yes, but I spent some time googling (and ran across an old schoolmates blog) and found some other things I think we'll be trying with the bananas

one ingredient ice cream

chocolate and nut covered frozen bananas

Now what should I do with my 12 cans of tomatoes that cost me a total of $2 and my 10 bell peppers... freeze them? the bell peppers that is.

Solids.... the beginning

We're planning on starting solids soon and so I've been doing lots of reading on the subject lately. We're planning on going with a combination of baby led weaning (child-led solids) and purees. Since Q is exclusively breastfed I'm not overly concerned with him getting lots of nutrition from his food just yet. Not like I'm gonna give him junk food or anything, but I just don't plan on giving him a lot of food yet. We're planning on delaying grains, dairy and meat for now. At some point I think we'll open the flood gates and let him eat whatever we're eating but for now, it'll be fruits and veggies one at a time.

One of the things I like about blw (baby led weaning) the most is allowing Q to hold the food and feed himself. He'll be able to gauge how much he wants, and as most people remind me - for the first couple months he won't consume a lot and it'll be mostly for play and to explore flavors and textures.

Honestly, I've been on the fence about starting solids. I LOVE LOVE LOVE our breastfeeding relationship and don't want to do anything to jeopardize it or change it. I see that Q has an interest in what we're eating and a strong interest putting it in his mouth but I'm just not sure his little gut is ready yet. At least that's what my grown up gut is telling me. I do find myself wanting to give him food at dinnertime - something to hold and play with and gum. So you know what? I did. I followed the advice of other blw moms and opened a banana up, exposing some of the 'meat' while still leaving the peel on for him to hold onto.

Here's how it went:


He mostly nursed the end of the banana until he got some off and then smacked it around in his mouth for a little bit. He made some hilarious faces, gagged a couple times, spit it out on his shirt, and gagged quite a bit more. I practiced a trick for gagging babies that my mom learned in Mexico.

I'm fairly certain no actual banana was ingested. It was fun though and we'll definitely be trying again - maybe mashed up on a spoon or maybe like this again....