Isabella -8 Months Old!

 

 

 

 

Weight/Height and Health:

 Week ago Isabella's weight was 9.350 kg. or 20lb 10oz. She is now on 91st.percentile in her weight growth chart. Happy Mummy!

This month is the second time Isabella has  been not well. She was sick with cold, runny nose and high fever and was just miserable. She has been battling a cold for a week now and still has a little runny nose.   She seems to be on the mend now. It was tough to see her so sick, but she's a trooper and has handled it better than I would. 

Clothes Sizes:

 Most of them are 6-9 or 9-12months. However the Minnie Mouse pajama top she is wearing in the last photos of her photoshoot are  age 12-18mnts. And is available at Marks &Spencer. 


Food:

 She is eating all kinds of foods: lots of veggies, fruits, pasta ,cheese, chicken and fish. My fridge is stocked with baby food cubes! 
She loves fresh mango, banana, and peaches. I do make a lovely combination out of this fruit trio and if you replace banana with apples or pear it can be frozen to use for later.
Sometimes I grate a little bit of mild cheddar cheese and she loves picking it from her tray, even if half of it do end up on the floor!
She loves her meal time and takes no nonsense about any distraction. I have bought a lovely high chair toy but she is not so keen to play while she eats , she needs food and most of the time, it's like you can't shovel it in fast enough. LOL.

She loves apples and pears so I make those all the time. I feed her two cubes at each meal (I microwave them and test the temperature if puree is still too hot). I still mix Ellas Kitchen Mango, Strawberry and Banana Porridge into her fruit puree for breakfast.   Every other day she gets yogurt ( Petit Filous fromage frais or Little Yeos ). Once a week we have scrambled eggs for breakfast.

As I mentioned last month, I love making baby food and I love watching her expressions as she tries new things. We've even given her peeled apple slices and banana chunks to try eating on her own.  We didn't do baby led weaning, but I'm trying to give her some softer foods to hold and explore with supervision.

 Sleep:
 

All over the place. One night she will go to sleep at around 7pm. and she will sleep through the night until 6.30 or 7 a.m. and one night she may wake up a few times crying. When she wakes up really early ( maybe once a month) we just bring her to bed for an hour or two until we all wake up together. I've heard that babies' sleep gets interrupted when they are sick and when they are learning new skills, so it makes sense. She is so lovely in the mornings when she is up she would turn on her tummy and lifts her head towards our bed to see if we are awake. Sometimes she babbles for half an hour and sounds like she is in a serious conversation with her noises and little sounds of ''dada'', ''ammm'', ''baaa'', ''maaaam'' ...etc

 

 

Milestones:

She's starting to make more sounds  lots of "dada," "gah," "baaaa," you know, baby talk. Watching her grow before our eyes has just been surreal. She is so responsive, interactive and interested now. She wants to grab, eat everything and touch everything. She responds to her name and is curious about the things we say and do.( and eat!)
A few days ago she started to do this funny dancing while sitting and somehow managed to shaffle herself a few moves around the floor. So its kind of official that our baby is starting to crawl.....or should I say ''bum crawling'' . When we say to her well done, she gets so excited and a little bit shy too. So sweet!
She learned how to clap her hands, and gets very happy if you clap with her along!

And finally I am sooooo excited about the Christmas this year, I think when you have a child is double the excitement! Can't wait to decorate our Christmas Tree and take Isabella to the SANTA'S Grotto!

xxxx

  

Pumpkin Soup and Pumpkin Chicken Tagine

Pumpkin, Sweet Potato, Leek and Coconut Milk Soup

Serves: 8

   1 tablespoon vegetable oil         

1 onion, finely chopped

1 leek, chopped

450g peeled and diced pumpkin ( I have used quarter of my medium size pumpkin)  

2 medium sweet potatoes  peeled and cubed

1L vegetable stock

 1 carrot peeled and cubed            

300ml light coconut milk (optional)

Bay leaf, fresh or dried thyme

Salt and Pepper to season

Method

Prep:20min  ›  Cook:25min  ›  Ready in:45min 

1. Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion and leek, and cook for a few minutes, until soft. Stir in the pumpkin, sweet potato, vegetable stock and herbs. Bring to the boil, then cover and reduce heat to low.
2. Simmer for about 15/20 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Blend vegetables  using a hand held blender. Stir in the coconut milk, season with salt and pepper, and cook for another 5 min.
3. Serve with sprinkled chopped parsley. 

Pumpkin and Chicken Tagine

Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 35 minutes Total Time: 50 minutes Servings: 6

 

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 pound skinless and boneless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon garlic, grated
• 1 tablespoon ginger, grated
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock
• 4 cups  pumpkin, cut into 1 inch cubes

•  6-7 dried apricots diced
• 1 pinch saffron threads, crushed
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup plain yogurt (optional)
• 1/4 cup pomegranate (optional)

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan  over medium-high heat, add the chicken and cook until lightly browned on all sides before setting aside.
2. Add the onion and cook until tender, about 5-7 minutes.
3. Add the garlic, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and cayenne pepper and sauté until fragrant, about a minute.
4. Add the stock, chicken, pumpkin, saffron threads,apricots salt and pepper, bring to a boil, and transfer everything to the tagine. Cook in preheated oven (200C) for about 30min. If you don't have the Tagine, continue cooking in a large saucepan.
5. Serve over cous cous or rice or quinoa, etc. topped with the pomegranate seeds and yogurt.

Option: Use skin on and bone in chicken thighs, legs or drumstick instead of the skinless and boneless chicken breasts or thighs. Sear the skins in the pan until browned and then increase the cook time to 30 minutes.
Option: Replace the chicken with 1 can of chickpeas for vegetarian version.
Option: Replace the pumpkin with another sweet winter squash like a butternut squash etc.

 

Isabella- 7 Months Old!

 

 

 

Finally I am able to post Isabella's 7 month update ( due on 24th of October). We have recovered some of her photos from our broken PC, sadly not all of them :(

 

Height/Weight:

As recorded on 15th of October Isabella is now 19lb or 8.950 kg. We are due for her weight this week.

 

Clothes Sizes:

Most of the clothes are 6-9 months but we are already fitting 9-12 months .As I have mentioned before it depends on the brand.

 

Food: 
 Isabella  is really liking solids so far. She has baby porridge and sometimes yogurt for her breakfast. I mix up her porridge with home cooked fruit pure or just with a little bit of her milk. We have started on chicken and fish. So far she's been absolutely brilliant at eating almost anything I cook. She likes her vegetables mixed with split red lentils or sometimes I cook lots of vegetables with little pasta shapes and cheese. Sweet potatoes, pears, apples, peas, banana and carrots are still most favourites. But happy to eat broccoli and courgette. I am using the books by Annabel Karmel as a guide to make all of her food.  The first time she tries a new food, whether she likes it or not, she makes the funniest face. Her favourite so far is anything that tastes a bit sweet which doesn't surprise me. She probably has a sweet tooth like her mamma.  I mushed some blueberries other day and she refused to take it as they tasted a bit soured but mixed with yogurt was a big hit! I was going to delay introducing fruits until I had given her most of the vegetables that are recommended, but I read some studies that indicated that babies are born with a preference for sweets (breast milk is sweet!) and that introducing fruits does not mean that your baby will not like vegetables. I also like to mix foods--- apples and pears, peas and apples, carrots and apples, chicken and peaches etc.

She drinks water and her formula milk 3 to 4 times a day.

Speaking of making her food, I absolutely love it. It's fun and I get to make use of my blender. I think there's a perception that making baby food is time-consuming, but I make big batches and freeze them and then I just pop out a couple of cubes, warm them, and they're ready to go. None of the recipes require more than 10 minutes of boiling and then you just puree in a blender and pour into ice cube trays (make sure to use BPA-free ones!) The prep work (peeling, etc.) doesn't take long either.

Sleep:

  

So far Isabella has been sleeping so well and fingers crossed hope it will continue. Seriously, hallelujah. Isabella is usually asleep by 7 p.m. We have a night time routine.  She basically sleeps through the night most nights. Sometimes she does randomly wake up at around 10 or 10:30 p.m. sometimes all she needs is to turn her around on her back  or she just needs to be rocked for a few minutes and put back in her cot. We haven't been doing any "cry it out," because we find that providing whatever comfort she needs yields a better outcome instead of letting her get all worked up and having to start all over again. She usually wakes up at 7ish, and we bring her into our bed so she can get a cuddle from us, sometimes we turn telly on and we all watch kids cartoons before we all start our day.

 

Milestones:

Likes: Sitting, her toys,  being picked up, napping, cat Poppy,  eating, looking at herself in the mirror, stroller rides, baths,  books (and eating her books),cuddles with Dadda. 

The biggest milestone  is that Isabella said "dada." I have mentioned before that it sounded like Dadda but now she's is definitely addressing this word to her Daddy!  We realize that she doesn't really know what it means but she says it clearly and it was pretty cool to hear it among her other baby babble which is also expanding. She sits confidently on her own but no progress in crawling department yet.....However she happily can turn from her back onto her tummy and back again.

 Everyone keeps telling me to treasure the non-mobile stage because things start to get pretty crazy once babies can move.

 

In other news, we have four teeth! Two front bottom teeth, to be exact! And upper middle teeth. They had been breaking through the gums for a few weeks and they finally poked through to where you can see them, but they're not fully emerged yet. I was pleasantly surprised with how well she did with teething. We had a few fussier days and nights, but overall she didn't seem to be majorly impacted.

Did you know? Tooth development is hereditary, so if you got your teeth early, it's likely that your baby will, too.

 xxxxxx