Mazen turned 8 months old on May 7 (which means he’s nearly 9 months old!!!) All of a sudden he just seemed to learn all these amazing new tricks:

1) Rocking on all fours and sitting up from all fours. Two things we never thought would happen given his hatred for tummy time!

2) Early stages of crawling. He’s not “blazing across the carpet crawling,” but he can move on all fours. 

And climb on everything low to the ground.

And roll everywhere!

3) And STANDING! Ahhh this caught me off guard the first time I saw it on the monitor. How the heck did he do that!?

4) Tugging my shirt to nurse. The first time he did this I was in awe: he was communicating! He doesn’t do it all the time, but sometimes he’ll climb up on me and put his face into my chest and I know what he’s after.

5) Giving kisses. If I am holding him and say “Gimmeakiss!” he turns his mouth to my cheek and leans in. So sweet. This might be the first time he’s shown that he understands words. That and the time I said “I am going to change your diaper” and he burst into tears ; )

6) Feeding himself. Despite loving to chew on things, he didn’t really know to put food into his mouth. He could pinch bites and wave them around, but they went no where near the mouth. One day I just forced his hand in there to show him (sort of against his resistance) and that was all it took. The next day it was Cheerio after Cheerio to the mouth and now we’ve been practicing with other fun finger foods and even a small banana.

7) Dropping his 5pm nap. I had a feeling he could go without it, although he still fell asleep whenever we put him down for one. But I shifted he’s mid-day nap back a little and bedtime up to 7:30 (from 8:30) and now we have two naps – at 9 and 2ish – that each last 1-1.5 hours.

8) Wrestling matches for diaper changes. Around the time that he started to want to crawl he decided he HATED diaper changes. Ugh – what a struggle!! Stinky little bean.

Still no upper teeth!

Newborn \\ Now

Who would have thought you could have whole conversations about the design of baby spoons? But when you’re feeding a hungry, moving mouth multiple times a day, shape and size matter. All three of these are good, and we use them all, but I definitely have a favorite.

Good

We bought this set of Boon spoons first – I love the cute design. They are good, but the bowl is shallow and wide so liquidy foods drip off easily and it’s hard to get the whole spoon head in his mouth. But the spoon head is great for scraping dribbles of food from the mouth! The short, fat handle isn’t the best for parent comfort either.

Better

I have six of these OXO Tot spoons in green. The spoon head is narrow and curves up, so it’s great for putting a single bite on the end. Most of it goes right in his mouth. I like the grippy feel to it too – it’s soft for mouth scraping. These are very sturdy and well made. The spoon head is shallow though, so again, drippy foods spill over from time to time before it gets to him.

Best

We go through a lot of baby spoons and I needed more so I picked this set of Munchkin spoons up because they were cheap. These are my new favorites. I love how long they are – the “iced tea spoons” of babies – and the bowl is perfect. It’s narrow to fit in a little mouth and deep to contain the food best.

Do you have a favorite baby spoon?

I have a lengthy post about our first flight experience coming up on Real Health, but I wanted to get a short list of tips on BERF from our travels across the country. Bullet form for easy reading!

CHECKED GEAR – We brought our Chicco KeyFit 30 car seat in this Jeep bag. The bag was fabulous, easy to carry, spacious and big enough to fit the seat, but it was slightly ripped upon our arrival home. Boo airlines. Just a surface rip so it’s still easy to use. The car seat inside was fine. Checking the car seat was free – halleluiah! So glad we took our own car seat because we ended up getting stuck overnight in Chicago and needed to take a cab to a hotel. We could not have done this had we not had our car seat with us. We didn’t take the base – just the seat and knew how to strap it into the middle with a seat belt. It was quick and easy.

GATE GEAR – We took our Uppababy G-lite stroller, the Boba wrap, our Skiphop diaper bag full of baby stuff and a backpack with our adult things. Mazen stayed in the stroller at the airport (he’s heavy!) and got in the Boba for naps and the flights. We were really worried he wouldn’t nap without a crib, but he eventually got tired enough to fall asleep on his dad. We checked the stroller at the gate each flight and it was fine – no damage.

EXTRA HANDS – So glad I had Matt and Karen with me. Traveling alone would be realllly hard!

FOOD – I had no trouble bringing frozen breast milk or a 3.5 ounce squeeze pouch through security. I nursed him on the flights and in the airport with my cover. I also wore a nursing tank with a flowy top so that I could just stick his head in there and use the top as a cover if I needed it. Like this:

ENTERTAINMENT – We brought about 8 toys – a book, a few rattles, a few things to chew on, some rings, a monkey. They were more than enough. Pack fewer toys than you think you need. Remember everyday objects make great toys too : )

DIAPERS – We used disposables for the trip and left our cloth diapers at home. This was a great choice to reduce what we had to carry in the airport and luggage. We usually tried to change his diaper 20 minutes before the flight took off. Most of the bathrooms had nice changing stations (although sometimes there was a line of other moms!) Luckily there was no poop during the flights and we changed him as soon as we deplaned.

TIMING – I would not recommend flying at night. We thought it would be better than early morning, but he just wanted to sleep and got uncomfortable in the carrier so then we just had to hold him and that got uncomfortable for the parents’ arms. Daytime flights are probably ideal at this age (7 months). Our return flight was daytime and it went so much better than our flight out, which left at 5pm and landed well into the night.

In general, people were very nice and accommodating. At the Chicago airport (after our overnight stay) we were able to get in a really short security line. Matt wore Mazen through and I was in charge of putting the stroller and gear through the X-ray machine. It all went very smoothly.

I think that’s about all the highlights!! Anything I missed?

I’m enjoying making baby food. It’s incredibly inexpensive, pretty easy and I’m glad to know exactly what Mazen is eating. But I have no intention of feeding him only foods that I have made myself. Being that strict would drive me crazy. Here are a few foods he likes that come from a package – note that some of them came as samples from the companies below.

I love the squeeze packs!

Pros: so easy, fun flavors, great for being out of the house and branding that sucks in a modern mom. Cons: wasteful packaging compared to homemade and expensive.

That said, I keep a few on hand at all time (including one in the diaper bag). When we’re at home we always eat homemade food, but when we’re out he will often have one of these (or I’ll bring some homemade food in my Little Green Pouch reusable ones). M is on the verge of learning how to suck directly from the packet, which I see from my older baby friends is quite convenient.

Mazen has liked all of the flavors I’ve tried. I tend to gravitate toward the ones with vegetables in them, although most of the veggie ones still have a fruit too. Friends have told me that Sprout makes a few that don’t have any fruit, which I think is good to mix in for ultimate vegetable palate training.

Happy Family sent me some coupons to try their pouches and puffs.

I picked up a few of the Happy Tot pouches – green bean, pear + pea; spinach, mango + pear; and sweet potato, apple, cinnamon + carrot – fun flavors! Mazen gobbled them down – what else is new!? They have a touch of chia seed in them which made them a bit more gel-like and nutritious.

The Happy Puffs have been fun too. My general thought on puffs (along with all of the carb-tastic finger snacks and cookies) is that they should be used for learning to grasp and as a fun appetizer rather than a meal itself. I did pick up the “green” ones fortified with choline for ultimate nutrition : ) They taste quite good and aren’t too sweet, and I like how they stick to little fingers thanks to their nooks and crannies to make picking them up easier. They also melt in the mouth very quickly, so concerns over choking are minimal. Mazen likes them a lot. He can pick them up himself and tucks them into his palms and just holds them there. He doesn’t quite get to put them in his mouth!

On the pincer front, we also play around with good ole Cheerios. They sent me a box to have on hand when Mazen was ready. [Spoiler: more on Cheerios coming up on KERF soon!] I am normally a store-brand girl when it comes to things like “O’s” however, I am being completely honest when I say that after nibbling on real Cheerios for a few weeks I went to my parents’ house and had some of their store brand “O’s” and they were not nearly as good. They crumbled apart when I broke them in half for M and were just missing a layer of flavor (I guess I am now a Cheerio connoisseur ) That said, any ole O’s are great for baby munching.

I was excited when it was time to try yogurt for the first time as it’s one of my favorite foods. Stonyfield sent me a coupon for their YoBaby line. Mazen loves yogurt and generally eats half of one of these at breakfast a few days a week mixed with some fruit and the other half at lunch on another day. They do have several flavored ones, but I prefer to get plain and mix things in myself. Long term I think we’ll just use a big tub of organic plain yogurt, but these are great for on-the-go.

I also keep a big jar of store-bought organic applesauce in the fridge to use whenever I want to add extra flavor to our homemade foods and don’t have any homemade apples on hand.

Lastly, I wanted to make some berry cubes for M so he could get some anthocyanins in his diet : ) I usually use cow’s milk in my smoothies, but since that is not yet recommended I used a YoBaby yogurt and enough water to thin it out plus about 3 cups of frozen mixed berries.

Smoothies frozen for mom and cubes frozen for baby! I thaw these out and stir them into his yogurt or oatmeal (they are a little liquidy for plain eating until he can learn how to drink through a straw). [The mom versions weren’t nearly as tasty as my usual smoothies, but they weren’t bad either.]

That’s all for now folks!

We are almost to 8 months and I feel like time is just slipping through my fingers!!

I look back at photos of Mazen when he was tiny (not that he was ever tinytiny!) and I really struggle to remember those days.

We have hit the stage where Mazen is learning new things every single day. He says “Mama” when he wants something and loves to babble “Dadadada” all day long while he’s playing. Karen and I got him to wave bye-bye yesterday! He seems to be mimicking us really well (not sure that he really understands anything that he does). We learned that if we made spitting noises at him he would laugh, so guess who now makes spitting noises all day long?

I feel that we are days away from real crawling. He can move 2-3 feel on his own (especially when motivated by a smart phone on the horizon!) but it’s more of an inchworm roll than a crawl. Just last week he started getting on his hands and knees and rocking, so I’m sure the real deal is not too far behind. I just bought a baby gate to get ready.

But until crawling actually happens, we’re in this lovely sweet spot where I can leave him with toys on the floor and he’ll play happily while I do a few chores.

Diaper changes now take place on the floor because they have become a huge wrestling match! All he wants to do is practice rolling over. Putting a diaper on a baby on his tummy is not easy.

We’ve started trying out baby sign language after we had a class with Baby Signs with Gillian. So far so good! Our most used signs are eat, more, mama, dada and sleep. It’s hard to sign to him when he’s in my arms, so nurse, nap and others are harder for me to remember to do. I really want to keep at it though!

He still loves to eat and is quite the foodie. He hasn’t tasted a food he hasn’t liked yet, including broccoli, green beans, spinach and even herring! We’ve gotten a lot more lax about introducing new foods, and I’ve given him tastes of everything from Great Harvest Bread to fish. (Tiny pinches since he can’t chew much yet). He seems to love it all. He does use his two little bottom teeth effectively though! Here’s a fun video that sums up 7 months quite well: chewing, babbling, and spitting!

Breastfeeding is still going well. Solid foods are a bit confusing because it’s hard to tell if he’s eating because he’s hungry or for the fun of it! He seems to want to eat whenever I do, so we’re doing 3 meals per day, although lunch is usually quite small compared to official breakfast and dinner meals. I’m trying my best to read his cues, and I’m hoping someday he’ll be able to sign back to me “more” and “all done” with confidence.

We are on a pretty awesome nap schedule at the moment. He sleeps for an hour and 15 minutes or so at 9am and 1pm and then 40 minutes to an hour at 5. Bedtime is at 8. This is the first time in almost 8 months that I’ve been able to predict my day by the clock. It kind of rocks.

He has just started to show signs of true understanding of things. When I close the curtains for a nap he squeaks out a little cry because he has learned to associate the darkness. When he grabbed my nose particularly hard and I said OUCH in a stern tone he cried thinking he had gotten in trouble. He knows to look for my cell phone on the nightstand during nursing sessions. And he laughs so hard when he hears me say “Gooooooood morrrrrning!!” when I come in his room everyday.

Some Stats

Weight: ~21 pounds!

Likes: Food, bath time, jumping, toys that light up, tags, zippers, earrings, mommy’s hair, his stroller, spitting, silly faces

Dislikes: Diaper changes, getting dressed, the sound of the curtains closing for naptime

His laughs are amazing. His thighs so incredibly juicy. I still miss him when he is asleep <3

One of the ongoing challenges of being a mom is finding time to shower. For us, showers most often happens during nap time, but some of the time Mazen is up and I need to shower asap.

I present the waterless bathtub!

I used to drag his seats up from the basement, but that’s was always a hassle with a baby in my arms, so since the bathtub now lives in the bathroom closet, it was easy to pull out and fill with toys. It was actually the perfect perch for his baby laptop to rest so he could type ergonomically!

I showered with the outer curtain clipped up, but he didn’t need me at all – there was plenty to “splash” around with to keep him entertained.

As you might have seen in this post, I was on the hunt for an umbrella stroller to use for our recent trip to Arizona. I ended up buying the Uppababy G-Lite. I have no affiliation with Uppababy – just want to share my purchase with you guys!

We decided on the G-Lite because:

1) The price was moderate

2) I found a 2012 model on sale

3) My mom convinced me to spend a little more in hopes that it lasts through more children

4) I have a thing for Uppababy strollers and if we didn’t already love our BOB so much I would want an Uppababy Vista (it’s my stroller crush)!

5) It had all the features on my list (UV sunshade, bigger basket, super lightweight, one-handed operation)

6) The G-luxe looked great, but I didn’t think the recline was worth the extra cost since we have a car seat/snap-n-go that we’d use for any future infants. So the less expensive G-lite it was.

Having taken the stroller on a cross-country flight and used it for 5 days walking back and forth and back and forth around the resort and gone on a light hike with it, I have nothing but good things to say. Of course I don’t have experience with another stroller to compare it to, but based on a few weeks of use, I’m very happy with the purchase.

First the sun shade is awesome. Totally awesome. In the Arizona sun I was so happy to have Mazen be able to sit in the shade.

I love that it rotates down creating a pod for him and covering up his whole body (I often put a light blanket and sunscreen on his legs). I loved being able to see him from above.

The handlebars are also really high and while I’m sure that’s a huge plus for someone 6’+, as a 5’2” gal I found the height to be very comfortable too.

The basket was about as big as I would expect for this size stroller, but what I found to be fantastic about it was that our diaper bag fit VERTICALLY between the seat and the metal back. This was so, so convenient! And we still had room for toys underneath the bag.

M loved riding in the stroller, and the straps and seat were very comfortable for him. The wheels rolled just fine and even lock if you want them to for more comfortable long distance walking.

I bought another of these consoles to put on top. I have one on my BOB and loved the addition here too for my phone, water bottle and more. It’s the best console out there! You can’t beat the price on this thing – it’s under $10 and goes on sale for $6 at times!

Lastly, the stroller was super easy to fold up at the airport gates. I could do it with one hand, and loved the attached strap for lifting it back up and carrying it from the car. The G-lite is 8.8 pounds and I had no trouble lifting it with one arm. It also stands upright by itself, which was very helpful getting it in and out of the car.

I have ONE negative with the stroller. This flap is great to keep the sun from peeking in the back, but sometimes the sun was right overhead and I wanted to look down into the stroller to keep an eye on M but there was no way to tuck the flap up and it often just falls back down. However, it has velcro on the corners and I’m thinking if I attached some stick-on velcro on the sunshade I could stick it up when I wanted to.

We’re hoping to use this stroller as our car/travel stroller for a long time. It goes up to 55 pounds, so we hope to have many years of use left!

Hey y’all, have you heard about Daily Mom? It’s a new online magazine that just launched last month and an amazing resource of posts and articles for the modern woman and mom. The site covers a huge variety of topics, and you can find just about anything you need to research – parenting, beauty, fashion, green living, health, fitness, and more. I find myself jumping from one post to another.

I have partnered with Daily Mom to host one of their giveaways as a part of an extensive 50 Days of Giveaways campaign to celebrate their launch. For 50 days, they will be giving away one awesome prize a day to thank their new readers.

So today we’re giving an opportunity for one lucky reader to win a Diaper Bag from Lassig.

Lassig has a great collection of bags for moms and kids. They offer bags in every style imaginable from Glam to Vintage and even have an eco friendly Green Line. Lassig products contain no PVC, AZO dyes, or pthalates. Be sure to check out their stylish bags on their website. Keep in the loop by following them on Facebook and Twitter.  And of course, enter below for a chance to win.

The giveaway will run for a week, and there are only two mandatory entries with many optional ones. All you have to do is follow the directions below in the Rafflecopter widget. This giveaway is open to legal US and Canadian residents only.

And be sure to visit Daily Mom tomorrow to see what new item they are giving away and to enter previous drawings! The prizes range from strollers to high chairs, monitors, diaper bags, fashion items, baby clothing and photography products. There is something for everyone.

Need Help? Don’t have a Facebook account to enter with? Email Daily Mom staff!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

After you’ve entered the giveaway, be sure to browse Daily Mom and check out some of my favorite posts! I’m loving:

Why You Need to be Part of the Organic Revolution

Homemade Coconut Milk

Proper Places For Your Food to Chill

FEATURED SPONSOR GIVEAWAYS FROM DAILY MOM

This post is for notification purposes only. To see a full list of prizes and current giveaways, please visit  our Giveaway page.

My first batch of baby food lasted us beyond a week, but by the time batch 2 was ready for cooking I felt a lot more prepared. I put M down for his morning nap and got to work on peas, oatmeal, green beans and butternut squash.

I’m storing his bottles in the small bin on the right and all of his food props on the left on a shelf in our upper cabinets. Wish our kitchen had more drawers!

I ended up buying this OXO tray with a lid. The cubes are easier to get out, but not by much. But it’s nice to have two trays now. One wasn’t enough for bulk prep + freezing.

First the oats. I made some of Mimi’s Baby Grains and added some organic plain applesauce to them for a bit more flavor and nutrition. 1/3 cup of oatmeal with 1/3 cup applesauce yielded 6 servings. I kept two out for the next 2 days and froze the other 4.  The applesauce has been nice to keep on hand for when I need a quick meal and don’t have anything thawed. Sure a freshly steamed apple might be better, but I’m ok with organic applesauce with an ingredient list that reads organic apples only.

Next up: peas! Frozen peas were steamed and then blended and 2 cups filled this tray perfectly. After they were solid, I popped them out and put them into a zip lock with the sweet potatoes.

Next we tried two new foods: green beans and butternut squash. Yet another great purpose for frozen squash! I’m happy to let someone else peel it for me.

1 cup of beans were steamed and pureed with a little bit of water. They turned out quite watery and the texture didn’t look great to me, but M didn’t seem to mind. I wonder if they’d be better blended with something creamy like the peas or sweet potatoes. I kept one out for short term and froze the rest in the OXO cups.

Everything I labeled with the food and date with simple masking tape. Works for now!

Lastly the squash. I steamed 2 cups of it in a pot over hot water for about 10 minutes and then pureed that. Added a little bit of cinnamon too!

Then once it had cooled, I filled it into 4 of these Little Green Pouches. I was sent these to review and LOOOOVE them! They are $15 for 4 on Amazon. I’m definitely going to order a second set.

Have you seen these commercial pouches? When I first visited the baby food aisle of the grocery store I thought they were for older babies to suck from, but I didn’t realize this is just how most baby food comes these days instead of in glass jars. You can just squeeze the food onto a spoon and feed a younger baby – duh! Or squeeze into a bowl. There are so many fun flavors that appeal to my granola mom side – ingredients like quinoa and cute labels! But these pouches are expensive, so the Little Green Pouch was fabulous to create my own squeeze packs. We used the pre-made ones when we traveled to Arizona because they were shelf-stable, but around town you could use your own.

I scooped in the squash and froze 3/4 of them. They are dishwasher safe and freezer safe – two awesome must haves. When I feel Mazen I just squeeze from the pouch into the spoon. Eventually I’m sure he’ll like to slurp out the food himself.

Love that you can see the ounces on the side too.

Last favorite food tool: I’m loyal to OXO and the color green so these are our favorite spoons!

So for round 2 I made:

• 14 cubes of peas (I usually do 2-3 cubes per meal)
• 6 servings of oatmeal
• 4 servings of green beans
• 4 pouches of squash

That lasted us 2 weeks (with 2 meals per day and fresh foods like mashed avocado mixed in)

Not bad for an hour of prep! I think for round 3 I’m going to start mixing more foods together. Even though breast milk is still his primary nutrition, I can’t help but think about things like pairing a starch + protein or fat + fruit.

When I edited this video along with week one and the first three months, this was the “big boy” video. Now all of a sudden he seems so small here!

From four to six months he really went from a baby to a babbling, laughing, playing, eating infant.