Feed Me Seymour!!!

Charlotte's appetite is incredible these days. She is able to self-feed lots of fruits and vegetables. She loves individual blueberries, raspberries, & mandarin orange slices and chopped blackberries, pineapple, banana, red grapes, strawberries, & steamed carrots. She will eat a few peas & edamame. She loves pureed spinach, asparagus, broccoli & cauliflower. I'm continuing to puree these veggies because she will not eat them bite-sized yet. I will use any means to encourage her to eat more fruits & veggies than her father! I know the day is coming when she will refuse veggies, so we might as well get them in now, even if they're pureed. Just 2 months ago she would not pick up food and eat it, now we have a fridge full of diced foods ready to go.

It is becoming much easier to eat "on the go". We ventured to McDonald's last week for our first Happy Meal. She went to the church nursery last Wed. night while Wilson had choir & I had a meeting. The diaper bag & food got left at home & I didn't have time to go get it, so I thought, "Why don't we try a Happy Meal for dinner before church?" (McDonalds is right across from her school.) She ate most of her cheeseburger (sans condiments, I also forgot a bib, it was just one of those days) and fries.

We can usually find something on a restaurant menu for her to eat. Popular choices include refried beans, mac & cheese, mashed potatoes, pizza, fruit, quesadillas, grits, cottage cheese, etc. It is nice to not have to haul food everywhere!

Charlotte has officially graduated to the sippy cup. Her final bottle was last Monday. She finally showed interest in drinking milk from her cup last Monday night, so we plowed ahead with cup only & haven't looked back. She will only drink water or milk, not juice. The milk has to be 2% and be Borden's, Braum's, or Central Market. She does not like whole, chocolate, or strawberry milk. She has so far preferred water to milk, which is great for travel.

The switch to a cup was a 2 month process. When I initially offered the cup with cow's milk, it was refused. She also refused whole cow's milk from the bottle. I tried everything -- mixed with chocolate milk, mixed with strawberry milk, warmed the bottle -- rejected. I decided to just give it a rest for a few weeks, offer water in the cup, and go back to toddler formula in the bottle. Over a few weeks, I started mixing the formula with the 2% milk that Wilson & I drink. I continued to warm the bottles and she was fine. I gradually increased the milk-to-formula ratio and only warmed the bottle a little bit. Every few days I would offer cold milk in the cup. It was rejected until last week. Halleluiah! No more bottles to warm & wash! This was quite a transition for the little miss & she's a trooper!