Sweet People Get Sweet Potatoes (Shepherd's Pie)

Arthur's night sleep seems to have settled after his four month sleep regression, and his wakeup times are nearly always between 8 and 8:30, which is very civilized. If he's not up by 8:30, we generally end up waking him up to keep things consistent. But I find there's often a correlation with his dinner; if he doesn't drink as well at his dinnertime feeding, he generally wakes up around 8 or just before. If he has a big dinner, we often end up waking him up ourselves.

Saturday

On Saturday, Arthur woke up on his own. We had a nice morning, though nap-time was once again a no-go. Miklós thinks he's been less panicked during nap-time, though, which is an improvement. Previously he'd get really frantic when he was placed in the crib, but now he's ok for 10-15 minutes before fussing, and it seems that his cries are due more to a desire to be picked up rather than a fear of abandonment. I think it makes a huge difference that Miklós is staying in the room with him now, instead of leaving him alone to cry on his own.

Surveying our kingdom after a nap on Mama

He may not have been receptive to naps, but Arthur was great with his afternoon solids feeding! We started with a new food: pumpkin purée! It was a store-bought baby food jar, made of just pumpkin and water. He didn't really want it at first, but once he tasted the pumpkin and realized it was something sweet, rather than parsnip or cauliflower, he was quite enthusiastic, and happily sucked up two or three spoonfuls. We introduced another new food after that, and a common allergen at

Mama, your kefir is almost as good as your milk!

that: dairy! This was in the form of homemade kefir (from whole milk, as it's recommended that all dairy for young children be in its full-fat form). I wasn't sure whether the sour taste would appeal to him, but I think the creaminess won out over any tartness, and this was another big hit with him! I limited it to one spoon since I want to monitor for any allergic reactions, but I think he would have happily eaten more. We followed with two foods he hasn't been terribly into previously: spinach and parsnip purée. Maybe it was a mean trick to play on him after these new yummy foods, but he was much more receptive to both of those than he usually is, though we stuck to less than a spoonful of each.

Hoping to find more sweet potato on our fingers

I was cooking sweet potatoes for dinner, and figured I might as well give Arthur a taste of the cooked flesh before I added in the extra ingredients. And I think this might have been his favorite food yet; he loved it! He kept bringing the spoon (and later, my fingers) to his mouth for more, and acting agitated when he didn't have any in his mouth. I ended up cutting it short at a certain point, because he had eaten so much sweet potato and I didn't think more w

as good for him. So, I think it's safe to say he has a sweet tooth, as well as a taste for fatty things; his favorite foods thus far are sweet potato, pumpkin, full-fat kefir, egg yolk, and peanut butter. Makes sense.

So on Saturday, Arthur had:

• pumpkin purée (new food!)

• whole-milk kefir (new food!)

• spinach

• parsnip purée

• mashed sweet potato (new food!)

Sunday

Arthur woke up on his own again on Sunday, just before 8, and he was hungry. It's interesting; some days he has much more of an appetite than others. I guess he goes through growth spurts and phases.

He also seems to be getting more and more ticklish; bath time was full of giggles whenever I scrubbed around his neck and upper chest. Nap time was again niet zo goed; he got upset very soon after Miklós put him down and screamed for quite a while, but at least seemed to return to good spirits quickly afterwards. That's encouraging, I guess; previously, he would often sulk for quite a while and refuse to look either Miklós or I in the eye after a failed nap.

Arthur had quite a big solid lunch today. We started with parsnip puree mixed with spinach, and I was surprised by how much he liked it this time; it was definitely the most interested I've seen him in it. He had several spoonfuls, and probably would have eaten more; I wonder if it's just because now he's more used to it. Next was pumpkin purée, and despite it being a bit hit yesterday, he wasn't terribly excited about it today. He only had a couple of spoons of it. We followed with two spoonfuls of kefir, which he again seemed to like quite a bit. Well, he made terrible faces, but kept pulling my hand with the spoon to his mouth and eating more, so we're going to call it another hit. And the grand finale was peanut butter, which I think was his favorite of the bunch; he greedily kept pulling the spoon (via my hand) to his mouth and sucking it dry, and finished the entire portion I had pre-mixed with water. Nice work, Arthur! Although he wasn't terribly enthusiastic about nursing afterwards...I guess he was kind of full.

So, Arthur's solid intake for Sunday came to:

• parsnip purée

• spinach

• pumpkin purée

• whole-milk kefir

• peanut butter

Someone likes Starbucks as much as his mama!

We also had our third coffeeshop experience with Arthur! Miklós had given me a Christmas coupon for a hot beverage at an establishment of my choice, which naturally was Starbucks. So we went to the station Starbucks for decaf lattes with the dude. We didn't stay terribly long there (maybe 20 minutes), but Arthur was quite good for most of it. He started fussing a bit towards the end, but was easily mollified by pushing the stroller back and forth.

Sunday night dinner is always a Miklós specialty, but Saturday, I tried something new. We had a bunch of sweet potatoes (they were on sale), so I wanted to incorporate them into something, and found a lentil sweet potato shepherd’s pie that sounded good. I pretty just halved this recipe from One Ingredient Chef, with one or two minor tweaks (adding olive oil, MSG, and thyme, using jarred spinach and carrots, swapping kefir for nondairy milk). It was super delicious and will definitely be a repeat! Here’s how I made it:

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Lentil & Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie (generously serves 2)

Ingredients

• 2 medium sweet potatoes (minus a little bit for baby)

• 1 cup dry green lentils

• 1 medium onion, diced

• ¼ cup diced celery

• 180g jar baby carrots (120g, drained)

• 1 canned diced tomatoes

• 1 tbsp soy sauce

• ¼ cup jarred spinach

• 2 tb kefir

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 2 bay leaves

• spices, to taste: salt, MSG, dried basil, dried thyme

Notes: the spinach didn't add much to the taste or texture, so could probably easily be swapped with another veggie or omitted, depending on what's on hand. The same might hold true to the celery.

Instructions

1. Cook lentils in a pot with water, salt, and bay leaves.

2. Peel and chop sweet potato into small chunks. Boil them in a pot of water for 15-20 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 

4. Sauté onion, celery, and carrots in olive oil in a large pan.

5. Once the veggies are soft, add the cooked lentils to the pan. Let them cook for 5 minutes or so.

6. Add the canned diced tomatoes, soy sauce, dried basil, a little salt, and MSG. Stir everything together and let cook for 10-15 minutes. 

7. Remove sweet potatoes from pot and mash them with the oat milk and a little salt in a large bowl.

8. Put the lentil filling in a glass oven-dish, and top with the sweet potato mash. 

9. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until the top becomes a little brown.