http://wellcommons.com/users/photos/2013/sep/24/262020/

It’s here, you guys. B turned six months old on Saturday. Not only is it the halfway point between sweet, snuggly baby and crazy, hide-the-valuables toddler, but its also the point when stuff gets real. It means we pack up the baby swing, papasan seats and Bobby pillows. It means we have to get out the obnoxiously large and noisy junk like Exersaucers and activity tables. Ew and boo.

While I’m pumped for certain milestones (e.g. sitting up alone, babbling and crawling soon), I’ve been dreading a big one: baby food.

If you’ve been reading my previous posts, you know I’m not really a “green” mom. In fact, other than the fact that I breastfeed and support women who do it, I’m a terrible hippie. Even as I live in Lawrence, I still use disposable diapers, shop at Aldi and secretly pound Coke Zero during nap time.

However, I rock the crunchy mom thing when it comes to baby food. This is both a blessing and a curse. When I had HJ, my mom friends (who are only slightly crunchier than I am) told me about their adventures in making their own baby food. And I told them it was a dumb idea. I swallowed those words when they told me just how much cheaper it was in addition to the fact that it was the healthier way to feed my innocent, pure breastmilk-fed child.

Hook. Line. And sinker.

When something is healthier and CHEAPER for my child, I’m all in (ahem, breastfeeding).

I got all the supplies (thanks to my husband’s awesome grandma and my brother’s wife) and spent my Sunday evenings cooking, boiling, steaming, chopping, peeling, pureeing and freezing her baby food. It was fun for about two weeks.

And then it sucked. I hated the extra dishes, the extra time, and the extra storage required in the freezer. But I just could not stop and instead pay three times more for chemically enhanced food for my tiny, growing, still-untainted-by-chemically-engineered-food baby. I trudged on. I made her food for six months (she didn’t get her first tooth until she was almost a year old, hmph).

So of course, I’m going to do it all over again for this baby. Mommy guilt says that’s a given. Just like how B has a baby book that is just as not filled out as the one HJ has. I’m all for equality in this house, even if it’s in disappointment.

We started with the rice cereal already. She’s a huge fan. Big shocker there, right? Check out the rolls. This girl is not going to be a stranger to food.

http://wellcommons.com/users/photos/2013/sep/24/262021/

Here goes nothing. Please give me a wave when you see me in the organic and natural food sections during this time. I’ll be the one sighing loudly as I look at the price tags and will most likely be covered in pureed something.