Just when you think you have things figured out...

For someone who isn't big on change I am learning to adapt to it right quick lately!  Obviously babies change fast their first year and just when you think you have something figured out, BAM! they are ready for something new.

(Random update to this post, I read a great article this week on what babies can eat http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9646449/  I highly recommend it)

This week, for example, we have gone from being amazing solid food eaters to struggling through a meal of even their favorite foods.  Last night I was doing some research on ideas as to why, other than illness and teething.  Some sites I ran across suggested a developmental change.  The babies may want to be feeding themselves now rather than me feeding them.

Hum, ok, so that changes things.  What can I give them as finger food?  I referred to my two baby cook books quickly and got some ideas and ran to the store this morning.  We have been eating carrots, lots of O's and rice crackers, some fruits and a little meat now and then.  I needed a wider variety.  I grabbed grapes, a red bell pepper, broccolini, qinoa pasta and parmasan and deli turkey.  Came home steamed the broccolini and bell peppers, cut the grapes into pea sized bites and tore the turkey apart.

We started with the broccolini and red bell peppers.  A hit!  Both the stems and the florets of the broccolini were apparently delicious.

Next the turkey, which Emma took bites of that amazed me!  She loved it, all of it, she ate the fastest and most.  Then we moved on to grapes, yummy.  We were slowing down considerably by grapes and when those finished I had some pureed food and yogurt to drink and they seemed glad for mom to feed at that point.

Well, we certainly fixed the not wanting to eat but babies feeding themselves is really slow.  Our meal took over an hour.  At least we didn't cry and complain through the meal like we were earlier this week   We are also coming down off a growth spurt so their intake has dropped.

After lunch we played happily for an hour, giggling lots.  They made a goofy baby pile.  Then Emma squished Alex, which Alex thought was was funny for a while then she got kneed in the gut.

My new mantra has to be change is good, especially when it leads to happy faces like these!!

An update to this post on 2/3/13.  Yep, we are now independent and feed ourselves now.  Doing pretty well, less and less on the floor.  Keeping mommy on her toes to find different things to make since mom and dad eat spicy Chinese food and later than babies eat.  Will be making them a green curry, soy ginger green onion tilapia, and veggie risotto this week.  They like textured and flavored food.  Their favorite-which they will still eat off a spoon- is chunky fruit yogurt that I add cinnamon and coconut to for extra flavor.  Thanks to people who answered my cry for help when trying to decide if this was behavioral.  Independence comes on quick!

PS- I have started a list of what we eat at the bottom of my blog, just in case you are interested.