Molly's New Toy Box

Molly on Safari

Oh no! Why is that elephant crashing through our house?

Nonchalantly standing around at gates...

And examining their structural integrity

Crushing the floor with its huge girth and awesome size.
We could be trampled!

Ha ha don't worry everyone! It is I, Molly!
In my very realistic elephant costume for Halloween. 

C'mon. You can admit you were a little scared.
I am a very scary elephant. 

Daddy was shocked

Mommy said she was relieved that it was only me

No! I'm not cute! I'm SCARY.  Grrrrr.
Or whatever it is we elephants say!

Molly scaling Mt. Daddy Legs

More Molly

Still the cutest baby ever.

We spent quite a long time this weekend trying
to decide which was Molly's better side.
The consensus was that they are both my favorite.

Don't be fooled by this cute face - she ripped
that bottle right out of my hands. I cried foul
but she cared not.

She leaned back and fed the bottle to herself
without any help from me.

Her coordination is getting so much better - she even
took the bottle out for several short breathers
and got it back into her mouth without a problem.

Yes, chicken, garbanzo beans, carrots, parsnips and peas
do look disgusting, but Molly seems to like them that suffices.

The beginning of the end...

Well, it's official.  Molly has discovered crawling.  Though she has yet to use it for more than moving a half dozen inches forward, very soon she will be unstoppable.  I guess we now have to take baby-proofing more seriously...

Breaking News

This just in, our reporters in the field have found heretofore unknown evidence of a Molly cuddling.  The scientific establishment is both amazed and astounded, as well as shocked and chagrined.  Anonymous sources at the Really Important and Significant Institute of Bear Science have postulated that this "incident" may be attributable to a slight shiver in the orbit of Mars due to the recent arrival of the Mars rover Curiosity, or possibly exhaustion and recent consumption of a bottle of milk.  Stay tuned for more information as this story develops.

Molly playing and flapping

The Attack of Molly's Room

Molly was just minding her own business when these
two fish came out of nowhere and trapped her to the floor.
Luckily I was on hand to save her from this nefarious plot.

I guess the quilt was jonesing for some Mollybear...

You can see the rudeness of the quilt - it left a Molly crumb on its face.

Contrary to what I expected, Molly really enjoyed this game.

September is Molly Reading Month

This book not only tastes good, but is good for you!

Dr. Seuss is much more enjoyable when one is only wearing socks
(on Knox on fox on box...)

Molly quite likes to play with this book,
but everyone agrees that Judy's book sucks
(who really cares that "bunny is eating his good supper"?!)

Slinky: not just for eating anymore

You know about milk mustaches; have you heard about pea goatees?

A walk in the park with the babe with the power

Molly really likes chewing on the strap of her baby bjorn

It's exhausting being cute :)

Sitting is for losers...

Forget finger foods - fingers alone are delicious!

Arrgghh

In order to confuse possible burglars of Molly's delicious pear applesauce that Lisa made yesterday, we cleverly froze the fructose concoction into skulls and crossbones.  Now, don't be alarmed, this does not mean that the fruit is now poisonous; it's still the same goodness, but only disguised as poison.  We love our baby and do not want to poison her.  However, we are happy to give strangers the impression that we are feeding her poison, just like every other set of good parents.

ps. thanks for the ice cube trays, Dad!

Molly considers crawling, then decides it is too much effort

Molly has recently taken to lifting her belly off the ground and rocking back on her knees in preparation for crawling. Watch and learn, little Michael Holt! ;p

Making Baby Food: Part 2

Our freezer. 

In a previous post on the subject, I described how I make Molly's food. It has been fun, not overly time-consuming, and very, very cheap. Baby food costs $0.40-0.50/jar for fruit or veggies, and $0.70-0.90/jar for meat, depending on your grocery store. There is no reason to believe that store-bought baby food is bad for your child, full of preservatives, or will cause her to mutate. In fact, if you look at the labels, the closest thing to a preservative is ascorbic acid (vitamin C), which hardly counts. Therefore the reason I make my own is because it is so much cheaper.

My process has evolved since I started doing this, and in case anyone out there is planning to make baby food for his/her offspring, I thought I'd share some of the lessons I learned.

Briefly: choose a fruit or veggie, wash it, skin it, core it, boil it, grind it up in the food processor, pour it into ice cube trays, and freeze overnight. To serve, pull a few cubes out of the freezer and nuke them in a microwave-safe container. Stir in some iron-fortified single-grain cereal like oatmeal or rice cereal if you want, and add in some breast milk or formula to adjust the texture or temperature as needed.

Tips

1) Use silicone ice cube trays!!! All my cheap plastic trays are cracked and broken. The silicone ones don't do that, plus they are bendy and make it easy to push the cubes out.

2) If you want your baby to eat meat, make sure you camouflage it well. Meat is hard to puree and therefore hard to make the texture palatable for your infant. Chicken can be very stringy. I've found that cooking it all day in the slow cooker gets a better result than boiling. Despite video evidence to the contrary, Molly will eat meat if you drown out the taste and texture with other stuff-- especially sweet stuff. A typical meat meal for her therefore includes a cube of chicken/sweet potato + sweet peas + butternut squash. We've also successfully used peaches, pears, carrots, and sweet potatoes to drown out the meat. Note that all the meat cubes I made were already mixed with something else- sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, or rice. What I am describing is an additional layer of subterfuge. Oh and don't add too much breast milk or formula when you combine it to serve. This will make the puree thin and watery, effectively emphasizing the icky meat texture your baby hates so much (this is what happened in the video).

3) When boiling fruits and vegetables, you only need a small amount of water- much less than you might think. Fruits, especially, will contribute their own juice/water, and if you add too much exogenous water, the result will be thin and... watery.

4) Once frozen, remove the cubes from the trays and store them in quart bags. At first I thought I needed to store the cubes in the trays to keep them from sticking together. Not only is this not true, but it is a huge pain to pry cubes out with a knife every time you want to feed your baby.

I'm Molly's belly, and I approve this message. 

Molly cute like it's her job (and it is)

We found shoes for Molly at Goodwill. They are WAY
too big and completely unnecessary but they have
lightning bolts on the sides so who cares?  

Molly spends as much time as she can rolling around on the floor. 

Molly pretending like she can hold her bottle properly.

Molly loves the duckie that Aunt Katie gave her!
It even has a pacifier on the back of its head- what could be better?

This lion is from Julie and Zak. It is about 3 times Molly's size
and usually lives under the crib. Sarge and Phil are very jealous.  

Molly eating blueberries for the first time.
She makes this face the first bite of everything she eats.
She actually really likes blueberries.

Oh! 

Where's my food? 

Molly examining Sarge's foot. 

Molly frequently rolls under her dresser and gets stuck.

"Dad, seriously, stop taking pictures and get me out of here!"

Molly's first trip to a brewery. Don't tell Williamsburg Alewerks,
but she puked on the floor. It was classy.

Molly might be a vegetarian

She did not enjoy eating beef, potatoes, and carrots today even though she has eaten them the last two days without a problem.  We think she is considering vegetarianism.  Shortly after this video, she wolfed down some pears and oatmeal.  When we tried to give her chicken and rice later, more weird faces, gagging, and just opening her mouth and letting the food fall out.  The dogs thought it was great because they got to finish the food Molly rejected and lick the high chair tray.

Molly vs. Her Crib

As you can see, the crib won this round.  It was a vicious battle, with much gnashing of gums and flailing of limbs.  The crib, through a superior imposition of strategy, forced Molly to tap out with an expert and unprecedented use of a double-leg lock.  Unfortunately, Molly's ducky was collateral damage in this fierce battle, having been crushed under Molly's giant body.

NB: We did not pose her for this picture.  During one of our nightly peeks to see if Molly was still cute, we found her sleeping like this.  After grabbing the camera, we repositioned her and she didn't even wake up.

Dispatch from Basic Officer Leadership Course

You probably cannot see me in this photo
because I am wearing camouflage. 

ARMY JARGON 101

1) Hooah: defined as “anything and everything except no.” This is the all-purpose Army filler word. It can mean anything from “I absolutely agree, you are so right!” to “What you just said was asinine, but I acknowledge that you said it.” 

2) Jacked up: An adjective describing things that are not the way they are supposed to be. A good example would be the appearance of my uniform the first time I put it on: “Lieutenant, your uniform is jacked up!”

3) Squared away: indicates a person who is not jacked up.  It is high praise to say of someone, “that is a very squared away soldier.” The opposite of squared away is a “soup sandwich.” (Think about it.)

4) Counsel: A verb describing having a talk with a subordinate soldier to “educate” him about something he did wrong or to let him know you noticed something good he did. Most of the time getting counseled is bad, but not always. You should stand at attention while being counseled unless you are told to be “as you were.”

5) Accountability: Taking attendance. Whenever we go anywhere, we budget extra time for this. For example, if we are supposed to be on the PT field by 0430 (o dark thirty), we will be required to arrive by 0415 or even earlier so that the student leadership can make sure that we are all there. Our squad leaders report to the platoon leaders who report to the company leaders who report to the battalion leaders that we are all here. There is lots of saluting involved as well. 

6) Being pissed: having a urine drug test. Here at officer training, they told us we were going to a “leadership class” and then surprised us with a drug test. In a normal platoon, 10-20% of people are randomly chosen to be pissed on a rotating basis. Can also be used as a transitive verb, as in “they pissed us.”

7) B.L.U.F.: “bottom line up front.” You are supposed to do this when you give a brief to a superior officer. It is a beautiful idea and I wish they would apply it to everything.

8) Tracking: Means that you are aware of something or that you get the speaker's drift. Often used in a call and response format. Examples: “I am tracking a problem with blahblahblah.” or “Are you tracking?”

9) High speed: This is an adjective meaning that something is cool, high technology, or fancy. Can also refer to a person who is really competitive. Does not have anything to do with rapidity of transport. Example: “Those new tanks have all the high speed gadgets on the dashboard.”

10) Battle buddy: This is broadly applied and can refer to the person you are currently walking or sitting next to, any person in your unit, or your best friend. In the field, this person holds your gun for you while you use the latrine since you cannot go anywhere without your weapon.

DISCLAIMER: The picture of me in uniform does not imply US Government/DoD/Army endorsement of this blog or any of the opinions or Mollies herein.

Molly eating like a big person

Well, sort of - if big people didn't have teeth and needed all of their food pureed.  Or perhaps if a big person did have teeth, but her jaw were wired shut and all food needed to be delivered through a straw.  If Molly were compared to someone in either situation, then yes, what she did today was eat like a big person.

Since Lisa spent so much time today making baby food for the person, we decided to see how Molly liked it while Lisa was still here. We chose a relatively safe food (read: not likely to cause an allergic reaction), pears. Since pears are also one of her Daddy's favorite foods, it seemed a safe bet that Molly would like them. Note that the video is almost four minutes long, but there is nothing unexpected at the end, so only watch the whole thing if you just need a cute baby fix.

Look What I Did to Perfectly Good Food

Molly will be 6 months old soon and ready to eat food, so today I decided to make some for her to eat while I'm at boot camp. See if you can guess what the original ingredients were.

Left: Carrots
Center: Apples. Top two are carrots.
Right: Sweet potatoes.

Left: Some are carrots and some are sweet potatoes.
Center: Chicken with brown rice and chicken with sweet potatoes.
Right: Chicken with brown rice.

Mmmmm. Doesn't it just look delicious?

Baby serving size is about 1 tablespoon, so I used ice cube trays to make individual servings. Once the cubes are frozen, I will stack the trays in labeled freezer bags.

The whole process with cleaning up took approximately 2 hours and yielded 72 servings. I recommend using a food processor rather than a blender because the bigger blades can pulverize meat better. It is also less likely to blow up and explode hot sweet potato all over your kitchen and your shirt. Not that that happened to me.