Instagram

Anybody on Instagram?  

My happy morning walking buddy!

More appropriately, "Is anybody not on Instagram?"  Am I right?  I've had an account for about a year now, but never actually taken any pictures.  Thanks to a little push from a good friend, I'm slowly wading into the Instagram waters.  Bear with me; it'll probably take a good minute before I'm accustomed to balancing photos between my Cannon DLSR, iPhone and Instagram.  

"Play with me, please."

What's your Instagram username?  I'd love to see your artistic snapshots, too!  You can follow me - lindseykroger

Avocado foot mask

Somebody likes to do things on his own.  Wonder who he gets that from???

He is so very pleased to have used the spoon all by himself!  (Albeit, only semi-successfully.)  

To clear up any confusion in the air, we are practicing baby-led weaning: basically letting your infant self-feed from the get go.  Out with the purees and in with the small chip-size bites of food.  My goal is to teach Maks how to chew with his very first experiences of solid foods (little dude already knows how to swallow, let me tell you!).  However, I occasionally present a spoon to Maks so he can get used to handling a utensil (in whatever manner he so chooses for the time being...he actually does pretty well with this).  Additionally, although the avocado looks pureed, it is not.  Maksim is just momentarily far better at mashing food with his palms than he is at using his pincer grip (pointer finger and thumb).

I'm not necessarily restricting Maks to mono-item food days (or series of days).  I've consumed such a plentiful variety of veggies/fruits throughout pregnancy and breastfeeding (without a negative reaction from Maks) that I'm betting against Maks having a food allergy.  I suppose if he develops allergic symptoms (rash, etc.), then I'll need to backtrack and pinpoint the food by serving a single item for a couple days at a time before re-introducing new foods.  In the meantime, if Bryon or I happen to be eating something and Maks decides he wants a try, we let him.  That being said, he's now tried carrots, avocados, cucumbers, green peppers, pickles, green beans, strawberries (sugary, yes...but it was just 1!  I was dying for him to finally grasp the concept of tasting/eating food!), bananas, lemons and sweet potatoes.  Cucumbers were a big win.  I hadn't consciously decided to explore this option, but we were at an event and Bryon had picked up a small plate of fresh veggies for us to munch on.  Anyhow, it was a quick, juicy way for Maks to learn to put food in his mouth and explore tastes.  Little half moon shapes were perfect for him to pick up, put into his mouth (while still maintaining his grip) and suck/nibble on.  For meals, I've mostly stuck to avocados, sweet potatoes and carrots; sweet potatoes just might be Maks' favorite dinner food so far!  

Here's a flashback to Maks' third meal of all time.  Most of Maks' avocado always ends up on his toes!  And don't worry, I caught him eyeing that fork!  

"What's the big deal with this food stuff anyhow?  It's so squishy..."

"Oh my gosh, Mama!  You've GOT to try this!!!"

Little Mr. doesn't mess around when it comes to getting baby soft skin.  

There's nothing like a moisturizing avocado foot mask!  

It's difficult to believe that he actually ingested any, right?  I'm proud to say that we've come a long way since this moment 2 weeks ago...but we still have a way to go!

Sushi adventure

This kid's daddy loves sushi.  Like, become-best-friends-with-every-sushi-chef-you-meet & always-have-said-chef-make-you-his/her-favorite-custom (not on the menu, mind you)-roll, loves sushi.  Luckily, the sushi chefs seem to love Bryon's business every bit as much.  Added bonus, they love Maks, too!

Sushi for Daddy.  Water through a straw (both new experiences) for Maksim.  Fair trade?  That depends who you're asking.

And a not-all-that-different second video.  I just love the "ahh, ahh" at the end!

On a related note, we visited our Indian Bistro for take out the other night and brought Maks in to say "hi."  The owners were quick to let me know that Daddy was in on a date with 3 other girls while Maks and Mama were out of town.  Of course, I'd already known this because Bryon told me they were giving him funny looks the entire dinner (he'd shown up at first with just one other girl) until he told them they were still waiting on 2 more co-workers.  Too funny that they were keeping tabs on Bryon!  That's what you get for bringing your co-workers to Indigo without your wife and kid alongside you!  Anyhow, they told Maks, "Don't be naughty like your Daddy!"  GOOD ADVICE!

While Daddy's away...

...Maksim will play!  I'm not sure what happened to the audio on this video, but check out his skills with his poppin' pals!  I love how he looks back at me to make sure I saw him do it!  And Kira never lets a good job go unnoticed, either.  Don't miss her congratulatory smooch at the end!

Someone is starting to enjoy walks in his stroller.  I'm loving that he's finally enjoying walks, too!

That is, until this happens:

Yes, my 6 month old is flipping me off because I'm laughing at that fact that he can't find his toy (which slipped up his arm).

"Just kidding, Mama!  You're the best!"

Halloween 2012

First off...this is LONG overdue.

My last day in Iowa called for some last minute pumpkin decorating.  I had to do something with the pumpkins I'd purchased at the pumpkin patch since Maks wasn't going to be able to stuff them in our carry-on bag on the plane ride home.  I'm not exactly crafty, so a quick round of glue and glitter and a spider web from Michaels did the trick!

I'd really wanted some cute photos of Maksim with the Halloween display, but we had visitors Sunday night and our plane left at noon on Monday.  We had about 10 minutes available between when I had to wake him up from his morning nap and when we needed to be in the car on our way to the airport.  Grandpa Tom tossed some blankets (please excuse the dog hair; my sister's dog is a shedding machine!) in a chest and threw the pumpkins and Maks right on in!

Unfortunately, my little man wasn't feeling the whole "smile for the camera" vibe.  Admittedly, I wouldn't be all wide-eyed and smiling after somebody woke me up from the middle of my nap either!

So glitter might not have been the best choice for pumpkin decorating.  How was I supposed to know Maks was going to actually try and taste EVERY SINGLE ONE?

Back home in Louisiana on the big day: Halloween!  

I'm 100% biased, but tell me this isn't the cutest little sock monkey you've ever seen!  You can't do it, can you?

No trick-or-treating for us.  We just sat outside with some friends and passed out treats to the neighbor kids as they paraded on by.

Regrettably, Bryon and I didn't have time to put together costumes for ourselves this year.  However, I still have a few more photos of Halloween to come - 1 costume for Kira and another costume for Maks.  My hands are just full right now - a baby, and a dog and a husband who is busy working this week in Virginia.  Stay tuned...

First Foods

Maks turned 6 months old last Tuesday, and that marked the day we were going to experiment with giving him solid food (in addition to continued breastfeeding).

I knew that we weren't going to go the sugary fruit route.  In fact, we plan to hold off on most fruits for quite some time.  I also didn't like the idea of cooking, steaming or baking the first food that Maks ate (which eliminated sweet potatoes from the potential first food lineup).  After a lot of thought, I'd set my mind on giving him avocados.  Immediately after visiting the doctor for Maksim's 6 month wellness checkup and getting the go-ahead to introduce solids, I made my way to the grocery store in search of a  handful of ripe avocados to use throughout the week.

Cue disappointment.  The grocery store was fresh out of organic avocados.  And there was no way that I was going to buy conventional for Maks' very first "real" meal.  Especially not when I'd been eating organically throughout my entire pregnancy and the first 6 months of breastfeeding.  JUST WASN'T GOING TO HAPPEN.

At the same time, Bryon and I had been anxiously awaiting feeding Maks solids, and I knew that coming home empty handed was going to be a big letdown.  So, I snagged some organic carrots and called it a morning (with every intent to stop by again the next day and pick up my avocados!).

As soon as Bryon got home for lunch, we started to prepare Maks' meal.  There really wasn't any true preparation involved.  One quick trip through our juicer (which does an awesome job of making baby food, by the way) and we were in business with raw carrots.  Without really thinking about what we were doing, we jumped in and started to spoon feed Maksim.  

It wasn't long (less than 2 feedings) when we both concluded that spoon feeding wasn't the right option for us.  We had researched the tendency for babies to open their mouths when something comes close and just didn't like the idea of Maks feeling pressured or forced to eat something when he wasn't hungry or interested.  So, we aren't going to use a spoon at every feeding/for the whole feeding.  Instead, we've decided to spend a fair amount of time presenting the food to Maksim and letting him decide for himself if he wants it (whether that means he wants to touch it, play with it or eat it [or feed it to Kira off the side of the table]).  It's all about exploring tastes and textures for now, and as with all things baby...it's going to get messy no matter how we do it!

FYI - I fixed the bug with the video of Maks crawling from last week's post on Learning.  Feel free to check it out!

Come find me, Mama!

Look where I found my little monkey this morning!

He'd climbed onto the base of his exersaucer and was balancing up there!

And as soon as I'd responded to his call to come and take a look...he was off to another adventure!