We're plumping up santa for Christmas

by Debbie Scullin
(Salisbury, MD USA)

Alex has been doing great with all the new foods we've been introducing to him in the last few weeks. He loves everything we give him and we are so proud. We just gush to anyone who will listen and anyone who won't. Bless their souls.

Last night Alex tried peas, which originally I was afraid to attempt. Silly me. He smiled the whole time and kept opening his little mouth for more. So I'm thinking there isn't a veggie or fruit we won't attempt now.

On his plate, he has tried and loved, avocados, yellow zucchini & green squash, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, apples, pears & bananas. Tonight we are introducing him to string beans and later on in the week him will taste the winter squashes that I baked up last night. They were so easy to prepare. I pureed acorn squash, carnival squash and once again butternut squash.

I feel like I should be on the food network channel. I am having so much fun in the kitchen cooking up all of Alex's food. The veggies come out so beautiful & with vibrant colors too. I even got the pureeing down to a science. I put away my blender and am just using the Magic Bullet for a quicker and easy job. Faster clean-up too.

So I was curious how it would effect Alex's weight. Well, he had his 6 month check up on November 20th and was 12 lb 2 oz and get this....yesterday on December 13th at the doctors he weighed in at 13 lbs 3 oz 1/4. So adding fresh veggies & fruits has helped his little preemie body start to bridge the gap to where he should be with other 6 1/2 months babies. The Doctor mentioned that preemies normally don't catch up till they are two and she said Alex is doing great. She said that he not only was closing the gap in his weight & length, but also developmentally. She also said that we're doing something other parents must not be doing. I think we're giving him a good foundation to start with!