Mother’s Day

There is some sort of irony, or divine intervention, that Julia’s birthday happened to fall on Mother’s Day and that it happened to be the first Mother’s Day that I could celebrate openly.

Imagine this: Julia would have turned 4 today. She would be a Sunbeam this year, and so she would have gotten to walk up to the front of the chapel and sing Mother’s Day songs with the other primary children. The cake that we ate at dinner to celebrate Mother’s Day would have had four fun candles in it and what a perfect way to celebrate MY day by enjoying the blessing that made me a Mother in the first place.

Except that is not reality. That perfect beautiful scenario didn’t happen because … well, because it didn’t.  BUT that didn’t make today any less perfect.

I became a Mother four years ago, but today I got to openly celebrate because I have been blessed with the most amazing miracle.

Imagine this: Another mother loved her daughter so much she picked out someone else to raise her. She entrusted to my care the most precious thing in the world: a little soul to teach and train and love. So today on Mother’s Day I walked the halls with a sleepy, cranky, baby who will someday get to sing those Mother’s Day songs, and we did eat cake (though she had mashed potatoes) and we were happy.

I was even lucky enough to get to spend today with my own wonderful mother who made my favorite dinner. We picked asparagus, cooked dinner, did the dishes, and played with baby kitties.

It really was a most wonderful day!

 

In fact, I think that the baby kitties were the only ones who didn’t have too great of a day today.

Dinner time

We’ve been slowly working on exposing Lillian to all of the standard fruits and veggies. We give her one new food a week. Going slowly has helped us figure out that she breaks out in a rash on her back whenever she eats bananas. I hope she grows out of that.  

Most of the time she hates the foods we give her.

Occasionally she likes one okay.

A few weeks ago my friend, Amanda, came over and helped me make a TON of baby food. We cooked, blended, and froze green beans, peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, pears, peaches, and mixed veggies.

Most of the time, I mix the mushed up food with baby cereal because… well, because several people, including her doctor, had said that it would make the food more palatable. It does seem to help. She rarely eats her fruits and veggies plain any more.

My sister and nephew are trying a system called Baby Led Weaning. I haven't researched it, yet,  but basically the child eats whatever the parents are eating minus the salt, butter, etc.

So I gave it a try. Below are two videos, 24 hours apart. In the first one I am feeding her peas and cereal with a spoon. The next day she is feeding herself green beans. 

Eating her peas and carrots. Kind of.

Eating her green beans.

She gagged a few times but never choked. After she ate her green beans, she still accepted several big bites of cereal and squash. I’m too invested in the mushed up veggies to stop completely, but I can see the appeal of letting her feed herself.

They’re both messy but at least she’s getting food in her tummy!