So many of you know that I make my own baby food. We do use the Gerber jarred stuff, but only for traveling or for the fruits that I can't get at the store. For the most part though, all her food is prepped by me while she's napping or sleeping at night!

I find it interesting that our views on life and just about everything are pretty conservative in this house and J.E.B. regularly scoffs at "tree-hugging hippies" yet once V was born you'd think we became environment-conscious, Earth-friendly, Green followers. Why you ask? Because I started making my own baby food, baby wipes, laundry detergent and have been using cloth diapers since V was a month or so old. Sure we have all of the store-bought types of those items for traveling or convenience, but that is all they are used for. I tease J.E.B. that he has become a hippie himself, but he firmly holds to the fact that all this saves us money and that is the main reason we do it. OK, yes it does save us cash, but still, I can't help but giggle to myself as I make laundry detergent that we're a little weird! (but since I'm home all day with V, I have plenty of time to experiment with all this and I enjoy it, so why stop!?)

The idea to make our own baby food was first put into our brains by our baby class instructor at the hospital. She was a self-proclaimed hippie who I swear looks just like the actress Karen Allen, who played Marion in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Anyway, she gave the class tons of handouts and information which included making your own baby wipes (which we LOVE much more than the store-bought kind I keep in the diaper bag for convenience) and making your own baby food. After listening to her, I didn't think it sound all that difficult: steam it, puree it, put into ice cube tray, freeze. One ice cube = one serving size. Ok, I can do that!

So one drawer in our freezer is now dedicated to V's food and is full of quart bags of ice cubed vegetables. While we were in Flagstaff with our friends in January, Molly introduced me to a book all about making your own baby food. While the author is a freakshow and waaaaay too crazy for me to take seriously (I'm paraphrasing here, but she thinks eating meat is one of the most dangerous things you can do. Seriously?! Come on!), she does have some great recipes in there and a lot of info on when to feed what and how to prepare it, etc. Because of that book, I'm also now making my own rice cereal for V from brown rice. Really quick and really easy but I still keep the Gerber rice cereal on hand as a backup.

Well,  the other day I made V some chicken. Up until now, I've only made veggies or fruit and the little bit of meat she's had has been the jarred kind. In case you were wondering, the food processor made short work of a cooked chicken boob.

Below are pictures of her introduction to chicken. It was a little dry so I added some water to it then found that mixing it with the prunes/apples mixture was better. I made the mistake of giving her a cube of broccoli last week or so without adding water to it. Well, the pureed broccoli was (is) very dry and crumbly, and instead of quick wipe of her hands and face with a towel when she was finished, I had to dunk her hands under the facet! She had fun, but man, she was a mess! So I learned with the chicken, but it didn't grab the water as well as the broccoli did.

She was very generous with offerings to Atlas, who very quickly learned to hang close by when its V's time to eat



For someone who likes neat, clean things, this whole teaching-your-baby-to-eat-by-herself-thing is torture!