Num num num!

<----Joaquin on his first birthday!---:::

One of the great things about having a baby is feeding it.  Nursing is so lovely at times.  For me I loved it when we were all alone at night, by the light of the television, and the only sound was my baby's snorts as it was trying to breathe under my enormous breast.  Yeah, the mams got big, scary big! That is one reason why I packed it in and went to bottles.

Oh bottles... They spill, they stink, and now it seems they are poisoning babies and making them hyperactive.  What?!? Frightening how many everyday things are doing or not doing serious harm to our babies.  Meh.  It is an amazing feet that we survived.  I don't think I even wore a seat belt until I was 14, but I digress.

The point of this rambling blog is that we are almost finished with the bottle stage all together. Elodie is turning a year in two weeks and we will be finished with formula forever!!!  She really has weaned herself.  She is down to about 24 ounces a day of formula and getting most of her nutrients from real food.  She loves to eat.  She especially likes trying new things that she can feed herself. 

Today for her lunch Camden gave her cheese, pepperoni, and strawberries.  It was sensory overload. Sour, sweet, bitter, spicy she really was into it.  She was throwing back her head and saying, "Num, num,num!"  When my girl likes something, she dances.  She throws her arms up with happy fist, shakes her waist, and smiles big, free and easy.  It is the best thing ever and gets me moving as well.  She will even do it if I sing a swinging tune to her.

 

I can't wait to give her her birthday cake.  It is also my last first birthday cake.  Boo.  Monro when he had his, shoved in the cake with such gusto and licked his tray until he fell back with a look of pure cake euphoria.  Joaquin was a little more subdued.  He took a lot more coaxing.  I think that his reluctance stemmed from a cookie incident at Christmas.  He ate a huge sugar cookie and then barfed it up.  But eventually he dove right into his first cake and the love for sugar was born,(: see picture above :).

I will be so happy to see the bottles and their messiness go in two weeks!  But most of all I will be so very proud on her birthday.  Proud that I did my very best to feed, grow and love a perfect little girl.   That's my Elodie!  Now the question is... what kind of cake do we give her?  Hmmm. Chocolate I think, yes indeed!  Bollocks to carrot cake, that is what Camden and Monro always choose.  What do they know about birthday cake?