The Good, The Bad and The Lumpy

Well, it's been a while since I last posted but in between cutting things into finger shapes and cleaning the high chair I just don't have the time. Weaning is going well on the whole. We've yet to encounter a foodstuff that she won't have a go at but then again we've yet to find anything that is small enough to get her gums around that she won't have a go at. Her favourite meal given the chance would be magazines followed by junk mail and plastic bags. Why aren't there any crinkly foods? She would love that.

Since my last update we've had the first barbeque of the season which of course was Eleanor's first barbeque ever. Now you may think it's a bit risky giving a baby barbequed food with it's notoriety for being burnt on the outside and raw inside but I'm pretty smoking hot when it comes to barbequeing (no apologies for the pun whatsoever) so I was confident that it was safe for our little lovely. To be honest she was more interested in eating the salad and pitta bread than the meaty bits anyway. She loved eating out in the garden and as you can tell from the picture she was having more fun than you can shake a sausage at.

We also had a not so fun development. After eating Sunday dinner in nothing but a nappy our poor little baby developed a lumpy rash all over her chest. She'd been rubbing a Yorkshire pudding on herself and it came up in what looked like nettle stings. We still don't know exactly what caused it but it seems to be a skin reaction rather than a food allergy as it hasn't happened since despite eating the same food groups. We've had to be a bit more strict with the dress code for mealtimes since though.

That's my girl!

Eleanor ♥'s meat! We started last week with some chicken stir fry. She wasn't even mildly cautious just went straight in for the kill and gave the chicken strip a good suck and gum. She's since had steak and chips, Lancashire hotpot, chicken curry and the pinnacle of her baby led weaning thus far (for me anyway) was her first roast dinner on Sunday. I bottled it on giving her a whole chicken drumstick to munch on although I have seen this done on you tube and it's very impressive. I was being a bit paranoid about that tiny wee bone that you find in the leg and also that weird gristly bit you get on the end of the bone. I'm sure I'll get over it one day but not just yet. The posh organic Sunday chicken proved to be a good purchase as it was the Dolly Parton of chickens so there was plenty for a curry the next day. Again I lost my nerve and gave Eleanor what I thought was a baby friendly curry. She had the same as us but I didn't add the chillies until I'd taken her portion out. It was still packed with spice but she has a habit of rubbing her eyes at the end of a meal and chilli fingers and baby eyeballs didn't strike me as a winning combination.

Eleanor has also had some dairy in the form of soft cheese stuffed into a chicken breast. There was no noticable difference in her eczema so it looks like dairy is in the clear. We're going to give gluten a go now which I'm more worried about really as it's not something that shows in breast milk. We have to try it at some point though and I don't want to be holding back on something that's perfectly safe so onwards and upwards!