Tag Archives: weaning

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Chinese New Year

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Sunday, 1 February 2014: Ten Months Old.

Ayla is one sixteenth Chinese and that tiny piece if her heritage got a big workout tonight!

It’s Chinese New Year so we went out for dinner at a local Yum Cha restaurant and no sooner had we sat down at our table than a Chinese Lion Dancing show began.

The restaurant was packed but that didn’t stop six brightly coloured, lifelike, traditional Chinese Lions (they look more like dragons to me) manoeuvring their way expertly through the tables to the sound of deafening drums.

As part of the show the “dragons” were being conducted by a man wearing a intimidating helmet-style mask that made him look like a Chinese cartoon character.

I’ve always been slightly afraid and overwhelmed by these show – the loud noises, the giant dragon mouths and their blinky long-lashed eyes, and this time in particular I was far from a fan of the man in the mask – but Baby Ayla was brave, excited and a little bit shocked all at once!

It didn’t surprise me that she loved the drums and started banging on the table in unison, and Ayla was completely mesmerised by the dragons as they wiggled their faces before her eyes and snaked their long satiny bodies past her.

When the show was over Ayla got stuck into her meal and I’ve never seen her enjoy food so much! Using both hands and all ten tiny fingers Ayla scoffed down steamed pork dumplings, lemon chicken, sizzling pepper beef, plenty of rice and coconut jelly for desert.

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Vampire

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Friday, 24 January 2014: Two Hundred and Ninety Eight Days Old.

I’ve decided that for next Halloween Ayla should dress up as a vampire because she looks so cute with blood all over her face.

Now don’t be alarmed, she didn’t get an injury or anything, and to tell you the truth it wasn’t even really blood, but there’s no denying she can pull it off right?

It’s raspberry juice.

Now that Ayla is properly eating food (instead of just making a mess with it) but she’s hungry all the time!

So today while I was baking piklets for Ayla and she was constantly under my feet, ramming my already bruised ankles with her walker, I had an idea to put some frozen raspberries in her food net to see if that would keep her quiet.

It did, and it also resulted in everything turning a lovely shade of pink, including her hair.

Ayla had a ball, she must’ve loved the cool fruits on her sore gums and the tart tastiness of the berries, not to mention the truly spectacular mess!

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TMI

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Friday, 20 December 2013: Two Hundred and Sixty Two Days Old.

Ok, so this might be TMI (to much information) buuuttttt…. Ayla did her first proper poo today!

It’s as if now she’s grown a tooth Ayla suddenly wants to eat real food and the result is, well, kinda gross.

Argh! It’s all happening so fast. Two days ago my baby got her first tooth, and today I can no longer claim she is “exclusively breast fed”.

Mind you, Ayla’s no where near eating proper meals, she just has a small sampler plate every now and then.

And it’s not like Ayla is actively seeking out or demanding meals but you can rest assured that if I’m eating something, Ayla wants it too.

I think food is still mainly an entertainment source though; it keeps her quiet while her brain makes sense of the taste, texture and fun-factor, but once Ayla’s learned all she can the slobbery scrap is unceremoniously chucked to the floor.

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Spring Roll

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Saturday, 7 December 2013: Two Hundred and Fifty Days Old.

Ayla ate an entire spring roll today… by accident!

We were at our boot camp Christmas party and of course there was plenty of nibblies to go around.

Ayla had been sitting on the floor playing with some corn chips but she’d finally made a sufficient mess and was ready to move on to new adventures.

I picked her up and was holding her with one arm as I went and grabbed a couple of mini spring rolls for myself.

As I was eating one, Ayla grab hold of the other and shoved it straight in her mouth before I could realise!

Ayla seemed to be enjoying it and I figured she would probably only suck on it for a bit before throwing it away, and when a friend came to take Aya off for a cuddle the spring roll went with her.

About 20 minutes later Ayla reappeared in my friends arms, but all that was left of the spring roll was one tiny piece of cabbage hanging from the corner of her mouth. Oh, and some crust wedged in between her fingers.

Ayla had devoured it. And I’m blaming the fact that she’s one sixteenth Chinese.

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An educated palette

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Thursday 14 November 2013: Two Hundred and Twenty Seven Days Old.

I think Ayla has been born with an educated palette… she’s been eating (and enjoying) a bunch of different foods that even adults don’t like!

Over the last couple of days Ayla’s devoured mango, brussels sprout and even some spanish mackerel, and today we went out for a Yum Cha lunch where I let her try a little piece of everything we ordered.

From the sticky outer covering of a prawn dumpling to the chewiness of a steamed pork bun, from a creamy, crumbly egg custard tart to the soft coconut jelly cake Ayla ate and loved it all!

It was pretty amazing really, to see little Baby Ayla sitting at the table in a Chinese restaurant happily joining in the conversation and sharing our meal just like a grown up.

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Dinner

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Ayla and asparagus

Friday, 11 October 2013: One Hundred and Ninety Four Days Old.

Ayla’s started joining Hubby and I for dinner.

Dinner time falls right in the middle “witching hour” so Ayla’s usually clingy and squirmy and loud, making eating tea as a couple virtually impossible.

So this week we tried putting Ayla in her high chair at dinner time so she could eat with us and its been one of the best decision yet!

Although Ayla really just makes a massive mess of whatever veggies are on offer, I love watching her learn about food.

So far this week Ayla’s tried (and enjoyed!) pumpkin, sweet potato, tomato, broccoli, asparagus and avocado!

When Ayla’s not playing with her food, she’s happily telling us about her day.

Nine times out of ten Ayla stares straight at her Daddy, chatting away with expression and intent like any other kid, except that she doesn’t have words yet!

Yep, dinner time is quickly becoming my favourite time of the day. With my Hubby on one side and Baby Ayla on the other, there’s no place is rather be 🙂

Dinner aftermath

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German pretzel

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Saturday, 5 October 2013; One Hundred and Eighty Five Days Old.

We discovered a new, great teething device for Baby Ayla tonight…. A German pretzel.

We were at an Oktoberfest event with a couple of friends and as part of the deal we got to try a range of German foods and beers.

Now that Baby Ayla loves all things digestible she was understandably keen to try the strange new flavours we had on our plates.

But the only food item we decided was “baby safe” enough to let her try was the pretzel, which was really just bread shaped like a pretzel.

Well, Ayla chewed on that pretzel for nearly an hour!

By the end of it, Ayla had bits of German bread pretzel all over her face, clothes and pram but it was worth it to see her little face suck and chew on that pretzel like her life depended on it.

For the past week I’ve been offering Ayla rusk sticks to help with her teething but she’s not been interested at all… One lick and the rusk hits the floor.

But pretzels on the other hand? I think we have a winner. Yah?

PS- here’s a pic of Ayla’s outfit today (we’re doing a weekly photo challenge)… It’s one of my favourites and too cute not to share!

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