Wednesday night I rushed MJ back to the urgent care center with a 101-degree fever. She'd been throwing up her antibiotics all day. I'd called the nurse hotline and explained that she'd just recovered from a UTI and hadn't yet had her renal radiology workup; the nurse sent me to the clinic. Another catheter, another urinalysis. She was clean, and her ears were okay too, so I guess it's just the same cold I've got.
Have you started solids yet? Try mixing her antibiotics in with her rice cereal.
I don't do rice cereal. Mary Jane got some food when she started clamoring for what was on our plates. She won't put her fingers in stuff like her brothers did at that age, and another thing I don't do is spoon-feed babies (boooooring), so I dip her spoon in something and hand her the spoon. She has had soft-boiled egg-yolk; yogurt; sweet potato; applesauce.
Yesterday I tried mixing the antibiotics into applesauce, and she made horrible faces and threw down the spoon. I was about to try yogurt when Hannah suggested that maybe I didn't want to risk turning her off such a useful food (especially useful for a baby who might be on continuous antibiotics for the next two years, depending on what the renal ultrasound shows next week). I looked in my fridge and found a jar of natural apple butter: apples, apple cider, cinnamon. I mixed it up with her antibiotics and offered her a spoon; she took it greedily.
I'm not totally opposed to cereal for babies. This morning the boys ate oatmeal for breakfast (well, Milo did anyway --- Oscar reheated a plate of Mexican lasagna from last night). I tried making it in the rice cooker, which worked great, no burned oatmeal on the bottom and no stirring. Lots was left over, so I mixed some up with some yogurt to thin it a bit, lifted up a few grains on a baby fork, and handed the fork to MJ.
Although it's kind of a pain to keep handing her the fork, compared to the boys' finger-feeding themselves, I must say she eats quite neatly for a six-month-old. Here she's already eaten about a tablespoon of oatmeal, maybe ten forksful.
Oh my goodness...has it been six months already? How times flies! I hope she's feeling better soon and that the renal ultrasound shows MJ's kidneys are OK.
Posted by: Valerie | 24 February 2007 at 06:52 AM
We usually use the solids philosophy of starting a little later so that we can use soft finger foods and almost entirely avoid spoon feeding.
Our third has interrupted our laziness. He was huge, and hungry, adament about starting solids earlier. He is also, frankly, pretty lazy. He just pokes at finger foods, opens his mouth, and waits for us to place food in it. Spoon feeding takes forever when they eat big meals, too.
Posted by: Kelly | 24 February 2007 at 02:29 PM