Cooking/baby question

Not a question about cooking the baby, don't worry!

I am planning on doing baby-led weaning with Archie (link about it here if you're interested! And don't worry, it is in English.) He's 6 months in a little over a week, and I have already let him try sucking on apple halves, chewing celery/carrot sticks [great for teething - I read that the celery has something in it that numbs the gums!], avocado, hummus, and toasted olive-rosemary bread. Thumbs up on everything so far - he's a big fan.

Here's the question: babies are supposed to have NO ADDED SALT until they're older and their kidneys are mature (a baby in GB died b/c he'd been consistently fed an oatmeal product with salt for breakfast and mashed potatoes with gravy for dinner!!) so...will our adult food taste yucky being cooked without salt and salted at the table, or will it be fine? (I could always keep a portion aside for him and salt the rest during cooking - just do it in a separate small vessel.)

I made a faker cassoulet tonight (recipe here, don't bother though) without salt (just for practice - I wouldn't feed him that yet. Kielbasa? Yuck!) (also, it was NOT that good - boring, nothing special, and a lot of faffing about for not a very awesome end result.) ANYWAY, it was so bland even after salting at the table - I wondered if the salting during cooking was part of what was missing. Anyone know?

And...back to normal.

I took him to the doctor this morning just to rule out ear infection (because it's so not like him to not sleep! He LOVES to sleep! He sleeps 15 1/2 hours per 24 hour period!) and of course, he was fine.

And we came home and took a 3 hour nap together. And then we read books and went for a walk and had a bath and he got all yawny and I fed him and put him in his crib awake and he went to sleep. Just like yesterday never happened!

Babies are so weird.

..but he's giggling in his sleep.

Babies are weird. :)

Teething??? Sucks!

I guess that it's teething, at least. He took a normal (though early) nap this morning - got up at 6:00 and went back to sleep at 7:00 for about 1 1/2 hours. AND THEN ONLY SLEPT FOR 30 MINUTES THE REST OF THE DANG DAY. This is a child who averages 15 1/2 hours per day. He wasn't really cranky all day, but was CLEARLY exhausted and couldn't get to sleep. And when he would drop off, he would startle himself awake (despite brutally tight swaddling) about every 5 minutes.

I finally got him to sleep in the Ergo on my back around 5:30 and then he woke up within 15 minutes of me putting him down (although I waited till he had been asleep for 20 minutes to make sure he was really sacked out.) He finally fell asleep again in my lap about 6:30, but kept waking up crying like he was uncomfortable or in pain - I finally gave him some infant Tylenol and he seems to be snoozing much better now. (He's in bed with me all snuggled up to my leg - I couldn't sit crosslegged with his heavy self in my lap for another minute.)

I see what all the fuss is about now. Poor little man. How long does it usually take for them to pop through? Or will it be like this from now on?

It may be combined with the prep for the 26 week developmental spurt - he's well out of the 19 week one and has been going down by himself again like a champ for about a week or two. (He's 23 weeks now, but apparently this is a big one and the prep is longer?)

Also! In other news! I'm now done with all my small semesterly writing/presentation stuff - and both professors said they didn't care if I turned in the seminar papers over the summer, when I'm not teaching. So things should be calmer around here from now on, as I'll only have to keep up with the daily readings and begin my researching for the papers (in a relaxed fashion.)

Good thing - I pulled 3-4 all nighters in the past two weeks (and it wasn't the baby's fault!) That totally sucks when you're 36, let me just tell you.

It's totally true about the sleep sweet spot.

Man, if I catch him right at the moment of staring off into space and put him down then, 
he lays down in his little bed with nary a complaint and looks in his little toy mirror and 
coos himself to sleep.  He gets cuter EVERY DAY. 

(Why did I have to manually line-break that so that it didn't become one long sentence
rolling off to the right?  That's never happened before.  With blogger, it's something new and exciting every day, isn't it?)

I feel like a shitty mom AND a shitty student. I can't get him to go to sleep these days - I'm not patient enough. I'm so sleepy and so hungry and so anxious about school and I can't calm down enough to get him to groove off of me. All I have to offer is the boob, and if that doesn't knock him out I don't know what to do.

Thank god Robert can get him to sleep, but that makes me feel even shittier. Moms are supposed to be able to do that too, for chrissakes.

At least once we get him to sleep he's still sleeping at night (and I probably just jinxed that too.) But he only got up once between 6:30 pm and 4:30 am last night. Of course, I had to get up at 5:00 to plan my class, and I stayed up till almost midnight studying, so it didn't do me much good - but at least I know he's still getting the sleep he needs at night.

And I didn't finish the reading for yesterday OR today, and I felt so stupid in class, I barely understood anything that I HAD read, and everybody else is smarter than me now - and I feel like my head is stuffed with pudding (and that's another thing, I'm supposed to make some goddamn pudding tonight for my father in law's birthday) and I have a presentation to do next week AND a paper to turn in and I can barely get the daily work done.

And also, I'm starving. Fuck.

In which I bore my own self.

Today I made Je Mange La Ville's Moroccan Chickpea Stew, with kale instead of spinach, and I am here to tell you it is gooooood. But that's for tomorrow's lunch. We had salad for dinner (remember! Weight Watchers! Although mine was pretty pointy, I think.) So: here's a good salad combination: shredded leftover roast chicken over spring mix with chunks of roasted acorn squash, kalamata olives, red onions, and goat cheese. With plain ol' balsamic vinaigrette. Something about the squash and olives and vinaigrette together was awesome.

And more of that brown rice/mango/coconut pudding. Can't. Stop. Eating. It.


Dammit! I'm boring! Um....the baby makes jokes now! (Seriously. He gums my face [which I do to him all the time, except for not gumming, just sort of raspberry-ing, which is where he got it from] and then looks at me and grins - he totally knows he's funny.)

Also! It snowed a little today, and iced! (And of course there was a typical North Carolina freak-out, where all the stores ran out of milk and bread, and all my afternoon meetings were cancelled, and public schools were closed. Um, people? No WONDER the Yankees laugh at us. I love a snow day as much as the next girl, but it was only TWO INCHES, and the roads were warm so nothing stuck.) (Although tomorrow morning might be a different story - it's freezing rain right now and it's COLD outside. Will I miss my La Leche League meeting? Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion!)