More Babies, a Wedding, Another Flight + Korean "Beef" Bowls
Saturday
Arthur woke up at 7:30 on Saturday. He had a susu breakfast, followed by some (probably ancient) oat bran I found in Omi’s cupboard, which I mixed with peanut butter, soy milk, and cinnamon. Arthur was pretty into it, and impressed Omi by how much he ate. It was certainly a solid start to the day!
After a walk in the garden with his pops, Arthur took a bit of a nap on me when I nursed him a little after 10. Unfortunately it wasn’t a long one; he was woken up by talking around him. Arthur’s had a hard time napping on me during this trip; I think all the people are too distracting. It will be good to be able to nurse him in quiet back home.
We had a busy day ahead of us: a long drive to Santa Rosa followed by a visit and a wedding! I whipped out the Cheerios pretty early on in the car. I also fed him some baby “melts” made from coconut cream, banana and strawberry purée. Arthur seemed to really like these ones, and they helped to keep him from melting down. Maybe that's why they're called melts!
Still, Arthur was very tired by the time we reached our first stop: Bea and Brian’s apartment. It was fun to see them and meet their darling 5-month old, Stella! It was Arthur’s first time meeting another baby but he didn’t seem any more interested in her than in any other person. I feel like he almost didn’t recognize that she was in fact a person. He was more interested in trying to grab her head bow than anything else. At one point, Stella started crying and it set Arthur off - a chain reaction of baby tears. But there were some moments where Arthur smiled and reached for her arm or hand, so that was cute.
We didn’t stay long at Bea and Brian’s; Arthur was really exhausted and we wanted him to get some sleep before the wedding. For that reason, we opted to skip the pre-party at Tante Lèn’s in favor of taking Arthur for a walk in the backpack, in the hopes he’d sleep then. So we found a park a few minutes away from Bea and Brian’s and headed there. About 5 minutes after leaving, Arthur fell asleep in the car, so we decided not to try to stir him and pulled over by the side of the road and let him sleep in his car seat. He got a good long nap in there, thank goodness - close to an hour, which we were very happy about.
Still, Arthur was a bit out of sorts at the wedding, at least until dinner time. It was a taco bar, and I fed him bits and pieces from my plane, namely some cheese, strawberries, and a massive amount of guacamole. After stuffing his face, Arthur was in a much better mood, but by then it was already 7:30, so we figured we should hit the road so he could get to sleep at a reasonable hour.
Arthur still had a bit of an appetite on the way home, so I fed him a pouched baby food purée containing banana, guava, white beans, and strawberries. The guava was a new food, and I think Arthur liked it!
We got home at around 9, nursed Arthur, and put him down right afterwards. He fell asleep pretty quickly, to nobody’s surprise.
So, Arthur fueled his long day with:
oat bran (new food!)
peanut butter
soy milk
cinnamon
Cheerios
coconut melts (coconut cream, banana purée, strawberry purée)
strawberries
cheese
guacamole
white bean
guava (new food!)
Sunday
Once again, Arthur didn’t sleep in after his late night, but instead, woke up just after 7:00. While I still slept, Miklós fed him a bit of egg I had cooked up the previous day. It was mixed with soy milk, Swiss cheese, and tomatoes, and cooked in olive oil. Arthur didn’t seem terribly interested in it, nor the Cheerios Miklós offered him. Apparently, he did two big poops in the morning, so maybe he was still working out all the guacamole from yesterday.
That may also be why he was a little less enthusiastic about the avocado Miklós fed him after his first nursing session; he didn’t even finish the full half, though he made good progress! After all of his breakfasts, Arthur spent some time in Omi’s little house with her, and seemed to really enjoy the little teacups! We’ll have to get our own mini tea set to have tea parties with him.
Arthur was pretty beat at that point; he fell asleep as I nursed him in the cabin (around 10:30), despite the noisy conversation going on around him and the warm temperature. However, his nap was cut short after half an hour or so when Uncle Doug and Tante Nicole arrived. Their visit overlapped with a second visit from Tante Ping, so there was a lot of company and I think Arthur got a bit overstimulated. While they were here, I fed him the rest of the baby food purée from the car trip the previous day, along with some more of the scrambled eggs. Surprisingly, Arthur still didn’t seem very into the eggs.
After everyone left around 1, I tried to get Arthur to take a nap on me, but he showed no signs of going down. I tried twice more, and eventually was able to get Arthur to nap on me from about 2:20 to the arrival of the next group of visitors at around 3 - this time it was Oma and Tante Monique.
I pretty much handed Arthur off to Oma for most of the afternoon as we packed. She clipped his nails, fed him the rest of the scrambled eggs, and played on the carpet with him. He was in a pretty good mood for most of the evening, and for dinner had half an avocado while everyone else was eating Thai takeout. Then he finally got an early night, which he needed after the past couple of evenings, and before the long day to come.
So, Arthur’s last day in California contained the following solids:
eggs
Swiss cheese
tomatoes
olive oil
avocado
Cheerios
baby food purée: banana, guava, strawberries, white beans
Monday
Arthur woke up with my alarm on Monday morning - at 7:30. He had a booby breakfast followed by half an avocado, then spent a bit more time with Oma and Omi before we left for the airport at 9:00 sharp.
In the car, Arthur ate a few Cheerios, and then, shockingly and blessedly, stared drowsily into space for quite a while before falling asleep.
Our flight was delayed by 45 minutes, so we had plenty of time at the airport to hang out. At least it was a straight shot to Amsterdam, and we were arriving early enough in the day that there was no hurry.
We were excited when we saw that we had an entire row to ourselves on the plane, but at the last minute, a middle-aged British lady ended up getting the third seat in our row. Ah well, at least she was really nice. Arthur was getting fussy and restless, so I started nursing him just before takeoff and he fell asleep before we even left the ground, at around 2:30pm (US time).
Arthur didn’t nap for terribly long, but he was pretty sweet and in a fun mood when he woke up. He played a lot with the pamphlets in the seat back in front of me, as well as with my plastic water bottle, and, to a certain extent, Sonja, though we made the unfortunate discovery that her batteries are nearly dead; she doesn’t finish her song but trails off nasally.
While we ate our airplane meal, I fed Arthur some baby trail mix I had picked up, which contained mixed nut butter puffs, berry yogurt melts, and freeze-dried banana slices. He seemed to like all three components! Miklós also fed him several berries from his own meal (pro-tip: order the Asian vegetarian or diabetic meals on KLM, because those were quite deluxe and 10x nicer than the regular fare), so Arthur also had strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries! I was pretty impressed we were able to successfully have a meal ourselves while Arthur was on my lap - we stuck both trays on Miklós’s tray table and I fed Arthur on my lap while reaching for my food there.
Later during the flight, Arthur had a bit of his dad’s Gouda, and devoured an entire curry baby food pouch, which contained sweet potato, carrots, tomato, chickpeas, spinach, coconut cream, olive oil, and various spices.
I started trying to nurse him to sleep a bit after 7, but he was just not having it. The dude was clearly exhausted, and kept rubbing his eyes, but even though he would close his eyes and seem to be drifting off multiple times, he’d squirm upright into a sitting position a minute later. And there was a lot of nipple biting involved as well. I don’t know what was going on with him; he seemed pretty agitated. Finally, a little after 9, he fell asleep in Miklós’s arms as he walked around the plane rocking Arthur.
And there he slept until we disembarked 3-4 hours later. At which point, due to the time difference, it was Tuesday morning, so that will be a whole new entry!
So, Arthur’s final flying day for a while involved the following solids:
avocado
Cheerios
strawberries
blueberries
blackberries
raspberries
baby trail mix (mixed nut butter puffs, berry yogurt melts, dried bananas)
Gouda cheese
curry baby food (sweet potato, carrots, tomato, chickpeas, spinach, coconut cream, olive oil, spices)
Tuesday
Arthur awoke from a very short night’s sleep shortly after our plane landed, at around 9:30am Netherlands time. Despite having only slept a third of his typical night, he was pretty calm and quiet, looking my around him with wide eyes as we disembarked and walked through the airport.
While we were waiting for his dad in the bathroom, I fed Arthur some pieces of a rice cake I had gotten on the plane. He seemed content to munch on it, though not especially excited about it. I also fed him a bit more of the baby trail mix, but he wasn’t particularly hungry for that, either.
Happily, Arthur fell asleep on the train ride back to Maastricht, napping from about 12:45 NL time to 1:20 or so, when we discovered he had made a major explosive poop. It was one of his biggest and stinkiest I’ve seen, in multiple hues with lots of colorful chunks (from the berries? I’m not sure). We opted to change him on two of the pull-down seats on the train, and he was not happy about it. Afterwards, though, he was in a reasonable mood for the remaining half hour of the train ride, sitting contentedly on our laps and eating the occasional Cheerio.
Unfortunately, there were some issues with the train, so we had to spend an hour in Roermond waiting for them to be resolved. So, while his parents boozed up at a café, Arthur sucked on yet another baby food pouch. This “brain blend” contained banana, passion fruit, spinach, orange, oats, and lemon, and Arthur seemed only semi-enthusiastic about it. Then again, he might not have been terribly hungry then.
We ended up taking a replacement bus for one leg of the train journey, and that was a nightmare. Arthur was reaching the end of his rope by that point, and was really fussy on the half hour ride. Then we had to go on another train, and he wasn’t too happy then either, though he fell asleep within a couple minutes of my offering his boob. Clearly, that was the issue.
It was around 5pm Netherlands time by the time we got home, and Arthur had only slept about 5-6 hours since we’d left California. He seemed surprisingly alert as we began unpacking and ate dinner at the table (Arthur nibbled more of the brain purée and some Cheerios). When I nursed him after dinner, he fell asleep almost instantly, but Miklós had a hard time putting him to sleep in the crib; he got really upset and took quite a while to go down. Still, he did eventually go down, and go down in his own bed for the first time in a month. I think we were all pretty happy to be home.
Anyways, on Arthur’s first day back in the Netherlands, he ate:
rice cake (new food!)
baby trail mix (mixed nut butter puffs, berry yogurt melts, dried bananas)
Cheerios
“brain blend” baby food (banana, passion fruit [new food!], spinach, orange [new food!]), oats, lemon)
Ok, the recipe for today is one that I made in Maastricht just a bit before we left to the states. It was based off of this recipe, though of course I vegetarianized it. I also omitted the green onion, since we were out, but otherwise followed the recipe pretty closely. It was a big hit - Miklós absolutely loved it, and I was pretty darn happy with it, too. Here's how I made it:
Korean "Beef" Bowls (serves 2 hungry parents)
Ingredients
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar/sweetener equivalent
½ tbsp toasted sesame oil
½ tbsp rice wine vinegar
½ tsp red pepper flakes
250g veggie mince (make sure to use a fatty variety!)
½ tbsp olive oil (I used garlic-infused)
2 small garlic cloves, minced
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp salt
⅛ tsp pepper
3 cups cooked rice, for serving (I used half white + half brown)
veggies of choice, for serving (optional, I served with roasted green beans)
chopped green onion, optional, for serving (I didn’t use)
Instructions
Whisk together the soy sauce, sesame oil, sweetener, rice vinegar, and crushed red pepper in a small bowl.
Add the olive oil to a skillet over medium heat. Once hot, add the veggie mince, garlic, ginger, salt, and pepper. Cook everything together for 3-4 minutes or until the mince is browned.
Pour the sauce over the mince mixture and stir well. Allow everything to simmer for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat.
Add half the rice to each plate, top with the mince mixture, and add veggies of choice to the side.
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