Squeaky the Media Starlet

Now, I always knew Squeaky was going to end up a mini-media star.  After all, my twitter handle is @meedja.  And SqueakyDaddy works for the BBC, and used to work on the radio.  There's no escape for her, really, is there?

Well, it's come true.  Squeaky is officially a media starlet, appearing NOW in a Real People magazine near you!  Because I'm a bad blogger, with too many other things to do, I haven't given you much time, this issue is only out until Wednesday 11th July, so pop into your favourite corner shop, supermarket, or wherever you prefer to buy your magazines from, and grab a copy.

Our starring moment

We responded to a call for help from the magazine, for mums to take part in their Mum To Mum advice page, and as Squeaky had recently had a mammoth breakthrough in the hairwashing front, and gone from believing she was being murdered to finding it actually quite good fun, we thought this was the perfect topic to share our experiences.

The whole process was really easy, I sent them an email, they called me a couple of times to take the information from me, and to read back the story to make sure I was happy with it all, and I emailed them a selection of photos (yes, they used my least favourite, where I have complete Hair!Fail, but hey), and we had a very happy evening taking photos in the bath for the one on bottom left.

The whole page

So, pop to the shops on Wednesday, and grab yourself a copy before our moment of fame disappears into the recycling forever!  I'm keeping our copy, it's something Squeaky can look at/be desperately embarrassed by when she's older.

Om Nom Nom

We're making progress, you know.  Squeaky has moved on from a single teaspoon of baby rice in some breast milk, to more than one teaspoon, to baby porridge, and in the last week, to VEGETABLES!!  So far, she's tried carrots, butternut squash, a jar of Heinz veg medley (or something along those lines), with pretty good results.  The pre-made jar was the least appreciated, while she liked her first meal from it, her nose was firmly turned up at the second.  Butternut squash is definitely the front runner at present, and is also the most likely to stain clothes, furniture & anything else it lands on.  I wonder if the two are somehow related.

And today, for variety, we had apple, mixed with a little baby rice to thicken it up.  As usual, the first couple of mouthfuls are met with confusion, and a look that says "What ARE you doing to me, mother?", but then she soon realises that it's food and it tastes good, and rather than complaining about being fed, she'd rather complain about not being fed fast enough.  Back on the veggies tomorrow, but I wanted her to try a little bit of fruit, just so I know that she'll take lots of different foods.

I'm going down the (nowadays) old fashioned route of puréed vegetables, and spoon feeding her.  I've got friends who've recommended Baby Led Weaning, where everything is finger foods, and what goes in, goes in.  But to me, that seems a) chaotic, b) messy as hell, and c) likely to be really wasteful.  At least if she doesn't want the purée, there's only a couple of spoons of it to throw out, and the rest can go in pasta sauce (more on the subject of pasta to follow), but if she's squishing broccoli florets into her hair & throwing carrots across the room, that's a lot more food to get through without eating it.  YMMV and all that, but my hand blender is my best pal, and I'm going to use it til I burn the motor out.

And I'm making a chart.  With what foods she's had on each day, written if necessary, but with lots of pretty clip art pictures of carrots & apples & etc.  Then I can print it out and put it in her scrapbook.  Oh yeah, I made a scrapbook too.  And every time we go somewhere and she gets a sticker or similar, I make a page in the scrapbook for it, stick it in, and write about what she did to get the sticker.  I think that means we should have more outings.