Ah, peas and sweet potatoes!

B-Boy started with Green Beans, and then moved on to Acorn Squash, which he adored. We then introduced him to peas, which to be honest, are not his favorite.

These are called Peas? But isn't that also....?

Yes, B-Boy. English is a funny language.

Last night, he moved on to sweet potatoes. We had wanted to start with them, but were told not to since they are so sweet. (Babies then only want to eat the sweet stuff, or so the theory goes.) I had thought it would be nice to start with something fitting from North Carolina for him to eat. Oh well. North Carolina is known for our sweet potatoes, so it seemed like a good place to start. Did you know this? North Carolina is the leader in sweet potato production, supplying 40% of the annual US production of sweetpotatoes.

See, you learned something. Neb and I went to the Farmer's Market to get them. Wanted them to be fresh for our little one! We decided on Covington sweet potatoes, as opposed to Beauregard, Hernandez, Jewel, Puerto Rico, Japanese, O'Henry and White Delight. Did you know there were so many kinds? I think not. I didn't know there were lots of different kinds of sweet potatoes either.

I baked them for an hour on a pan at 400 degrees. I pulled off the peel and then pureed it to a fluffy goodness.

So, how did B-Boy do?

He adored them... and looked at Neb as if to say, "You have been holding out on me! Where have these been?"

Orange is a great color on me! HA!

But the funniest part was to come... an hour afterward we put him to bed... WHERE THE SUGAR KICKED IN!!!!!

Seriously, he was flopping around, shaking his head, willing himself awake. His eyes would flutter, clearly showing he was sleepy, and then it was as if he said "SUGAR!!!! SHUG- SHUG- SHUG.... SUGAR!!!!!!" and then he would shake his head, flop his arms, and kick his legs.

It was hilarious, and it took 4 cycles of the music on the seahorse and me rubbing his belly in a circular motion for him to finally calm down and go to sleep.

So we learned something.
a) don't feed B-Boy so close to bed
b) heaven help us when we give him real sugar
c) we are grateful he can't run yet.

;)

Solid! I give it a B.

So today B-Boy got another first... he had his first foray into solid foods!

Today was beautiful, and B-Boy got a warm walk with Neb followed by all three of us sitting on the screened-in porch. It was fun to watch the golfers and feel a little like our old selves... it made Neb want to be on the course again, and frankly, me too. It was just that nice out.

Afterward, we sat B-Boy's bouncer seat on the kitchen table to feed him. Neb started with his bottle, and then when we were SURE he was happy, I started introducing the spoon. Neb took camera duty and got some great photos.

What did he have? Nothing very exciting, actually. We fed him rice cereal mixed with some formula, heated to take the chill off. It was the consistency of runny elmer's glue, and now that I think of it, looked exactly like that!

We kept waiting for:
     a) a meltdown into fussiness
     b) a sneeze, thereby covering us in pastey goo
     c) spit up

I can happily report we got none of that. B-Boy was in good spirits, and ate about 10 spoonfuls of the stuff. (Incidentally, I fed him out of a bowl I used to eat oatmeal out of when I was a little girl. They were bowls from my grandmother's house, and I adored them. They aren't much too look at, but I have such happy and warm memories associated with them... they make me smile and think of my Mema everytime I use them. If you look closely in the second picture, you will see the bowl.)

Neb and I remained clean, and B-Boy did really well with the spoon.  We even got a smile!

What's that Mom?

This is NOT a nipple...

This feels weird...and my hand looks all blurry!

Hee Hee, this feels funny!

What-cha talkin' 'bout Mom?

Okay, I'm done. What's next?

Also, I think it is official... B-Boy is teething. No teeth have shown up yet, but all the telltale signs are there. He is drooling like a Saint Bernard, and will stick just about anything in his mouth. B-Boy hates the teething rings that we have for him, and prefers more exotic items for teething on... The first was a rubber giraffe named "Sophie" that Neb swears is a dog toy (You can see it behind him in the pictures above). Yep, it is squishie and makes a high pitched squeak like dog toys. I can assure you it is not a dog toy, it is ranked number one on amazon.com for baby toys. Okay, I admit, I never did check the ranking of this toy on the dog list... Which makes me wonder, what will be the state of amazon.com when B-Boy is old enough to read this? Will be interesting to see that!

The daycare found that he likes to gum on foam letters. How they figured that out is beyond me. I went to feed him one day, and he was grasping onto something green. He kept putting it in and out of his mouth, and I was amazed that he was holding on to it for so long... as he has a habit of tossing things aside at the moment. I had to ask what it was, and his teacher told me it was the letter Q! I kid you not. B-Boy was gumming Q. It was from a set of bath toys, foam letters to play with in the bath!

So I had to go out and purchase some of those nifty foam letters, which I found on my second trip to Target. Later, he can use them in the tub, as they will stick to the wall. But in the meantime, I gave B-Boy one to gum on... since he is having fun with his Bbbbbbbbb sounds, he gummed the letter B today. Yep, today was sponsored by the letter B.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Groundhog Day is one of my favorite holidays. Why? We have created some neat traditions with it.

Every year, we make official Puxatawney Phil Spicy Groundhog cookies with my nifty groundhog cookie cutter. I got it from the official Puxatawney Phil website about 10 years ago. YUM! And we always watch the movie Groundhog Day, which I just love!

This year, Puxatawney Phil has some competition! I introduce you to Carolina B-Boy... just about the cutest groundhog ever!

This morning, he crawled out of his crib, saw his bumbo and had a seat... He then looked around and saw his shadow! Six more weeks of winter never looked so cute! ;)

I captured some more photos of this cute new groundhog, I thought I would share some more here.

I got a smile!!!!

Please don't show this to anyone... ever!

And in case you are wondering, I did make the hat... and Neb keeps apologizing to B-Boy for letting his Mom do this to him. Of course, he thinks B-Boy looks adorably cute too!

Hmmm... What are the chances B-Boy will let me do this next year?