Guess who loves veggies again

I'm having fun seeing what Patrick likes and doesn't like in terms of food. I need to make sure to not get too excited or too upset if he devours or refuses particular foods because I'm finding that his tastes change almost daily. In the past several weeks he's come to want to feed himself and the pureed foods can come from Mommy so long as they are fruit. Otherwise, he'll eat just about anything. I've been serving him the portions from Mommy and Daddy dinner that are baby friendly and I've been so impressed. He's happily eaten salmon with lentils, coconut rice and black beans, teeny tiny pieces of broccoli with brown rice and pintos. We've done a lot of legumes lately. He's going to be a bean lover just like his mommy.

Speaking of kid food. I have become obsessed with this blog called Lunch in a box about this mom who makes bento box lunches for her son whom she calls "Bug." There is (apparently) this huge world blogs of kid bento lunch boxes with recipes and pictures. It's kind of crazy but totally neat. Here are a few of my favorite pictures I've found:

More teeth and lotsa flaps

It's been a week - I think - since I last wrote. So much has happened in such a short amount of time. He has even more teeth now. The top two poked through on Friday. He had had a horrible day on Wednesday with the worst tooth pain yet. He cried/fussed pretty much all day. It's the worst thing in the world to hear him cry. But now he has some more cute teeth for to crunch his little crackers.

Oh, that's the other update. I tried giving him some finger food right after my last post and within a week, he's successfully managed to learn how to put things into his mouth - which is a little scary at the same time. I just need to make sure we have proper food in front of him and not a piece of chewed up dog toy or something.

I'm still having fun making all of Patrick's food. His list of foods he can eat is huge. I had initially kept track and now the list is just so big that I stopped official count. I can think of these foods off the top of my head, he's had:

rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, bananas, apples, pears, butternut squash, yellow summer squash, potatoes, parsnips, green beans, apricots, raspberries, blueberries, kiwi, avocado, carrots, corn, prunes, yogurt, sweet potatoes and Cheerios...hmm, is that all? I think that might be all I can think of right now. That's a lot!

We have fun shopping for food at the local farmers markets and Trader Joe's. I just found the darn cutest shopping list template ever - to help us plan for our shopping trips. It's free too: http://www.futuregirl.com/craft_blog/2007/12/meal-planner.html

And the flaps (from the blog title). He loves loves loves his books with flaps. Right now that includes "Where is Baby's Belly Button," a Dr. Seuss book and a few others. It's really cute to watch him get so excited to lift open the flaps.

Oh, he's up from his nap. Slept for 1.5 hrs - yay! I'll write more later!