ferrousland.com - daily news archives
Thursday, April 07, 2005
finally eating solids - 10:23 PM
(filed under 'baby')
after trying & trying & trying since smiley was six months old & him just not being interested in the least in eating solid food just for him (as opposed to sharing some of our meals, but usually only a few mouthfuls) he's finally got into the solids.
.. & it happened when he was good & ready, just as i thought it would.
there were a few people, mostly family members i guess, who were worried that he was still mostly breastfed & hadn't taken to eating solids very often. it certainly wasn't for lack of trying.
initially, he took to solids really well. he loved it, but fairly quickly he would only take about two mouthfuls & that was it. there was no convincing him to have more. even shroom's mum, for whom he would normally eat a lot of solids, had trouble getting more than that into him.
i considered dropping a breastfeed so that he'd be hungry enough to want to eat more solids, but since he's only little for his age (which is not surprising since shroom & i are both very short), i didn't want to take away a really good form of nutrition from him which might cause him to be even smaller than he will most likely be anyway.
in the end, i pretty much gave up trying to give him his own food. most days he was quite keen to have some of whatever we'd be eating & we'd share as much with him as he wanted, whether it was just a taste or half our plate.
this past week he's been as keen as i've ever seen him to have anything other than breastmilk. for instance, today he ate part of an apple for a good ten minutes. with his little mouth it looks more like a large mouse attacked it, but he did well getting through the skin & all.
earlier today he ate about one & a half bananas & tonight he wanted another one & ate the whole lot minus two small bites for me.
when i've been making porridge for breakfast he's been having a really good share of it, not just a spoonful here & there .. & when i've had a tub of yoghurt, he's eaten about a third of it.
i was never terribly worried about him having mainly breastmilk, because it's a whole food & gives him a more balanced diet for each feed than if he was eating more solids, but when things were mentioned several times, i did start to wonder if perhaps i should try to force the issue with him.
in the end though, i can't force him to eat anything he doesn't want to eat. he was happy & healthy & growing with his diet consisting mainly of breastmilk, so i decided i should just wait until he was ready to eat other things .. & now he is .. & i was right not to worry. 
fence & food sorted - 03:14 PM
(filed under 'animal')
this morning i asked my friend, jess, to come over to help me keep an eye on smiley while i did some stuff in the yard. there was only one thing i wanted to do, actually & that was to move some grid wire stuff from the dead veggie garden (not ours. the previous people) from near the back fence to instead cover the mcgarnicle-sized hole which sparny had duck under the house. he could escape through it anytime he wanted.
so she followed smiley around the yard while holding her little one (he's about fourteen weeks old, i think) & helped him up & down the back steps while i dig a small trench & wired the grid thing into place.
i went out earlier & he stayed in!! so it seems my handiwork wasn't too shabby at all. excellent. one less thing to worry about when we put him int he back yard. means we don't have to leave him inside when we leave the house & have him keep the couch warm & put hair all over it.
i also found a place in town that'll make up a special batch of pet mince with garlic in it! mcgarnicle used to be so healthy when we were feeding him the garlic & vegetable chicken mince all those year ago. this won't have vegetables in it, but i think the garlic is what was keeping him so happy, healthy & shiny.
so his health might pick up again, not to mention that we won't have to be cleaning up dog spew every day. woohoo! 
celebrity babies - 08:22 AM
(filed under 'linky lurrve')
it's interesting to observe those that have more money than most of us & more time on their hands than most of us &, because of this, to see how they interact with their children differently or the same as us.
this morning, by accident, i found celebrity baby blog.
curtains, please? - 06:39 AM
(filed under 'general')
as part of the job that shroom has here at the college, a house is provided on campus. it's a decent house & aside from a few little maintenance issues, which are in the process of being sorted out, it's in good order.
one thing which we weren't sure about since we've been here is whether curtains would be provided, because currently there are none at all. in my experiences in rental house situations, some curtains are usually part of the deal, so shroom set about finding out.
he asked some of the guys at work & found out that no, we are to sort out our own curtains, but curtain rods are provided. shroom said that he actually couldn't help but to let out a kind of snorty chuckle. i don't think i would have had that much control. i would have laughed out loud in their faces.
gee, thanks. i mean, you know how expensive those aluminium rods with the little plastic ends on them can be!
on the other hand, don't you always carry curtains around with you from house to house? i'd like to know if there's ever been a house where one set of curtains will fit any combination of windows or doors. in fact, i'd like to know if there's ever been a house where one curtain will properly fit more than the one window or door for which it was made!
goodness me. bit odd. to say the least.
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