Hooray for home made baby food!

Butternut squash is one of Zeke's ultimate favorite foods. Even as we're moving away from purees and into more solid foods, Zeke is pretty picky about the texture of his food, and we find that mixing grains and such with some butternut makes it more palatable. I also use butternut puree to bake Zeke's butternut squash muffin bites, which are a most healthy snack that he LOVES like it's candy.

Since we always make our own baby food, I don't usually give it much thought, but today I was curious how much it would cost to buy baby food jars of butternut squash if we didn't have time to make our own. The cost difference shocked me. I bought 3 organic butternut squashes from the farmer's market yesterday. My total cost was just over $10. I baked them in the oven last night, scooped out the cooked squash, pureed it in a food processor, and transferred it to storage containers. I wound up with close to 100 oz of puree. That's 10 cents an ounce for organic butternut squash.

Next I looked up baby food on Amazon.com. Amazon tends to have decent prices on things so I thought that would be a good comparison. One thing I discovered is that most baby food manufacturers don't offer straight butternut squash. It's butternut and apples, or butternut and corn. When I finally found a straight butternut squash, I found 2.5 Ounce Jars (Pack of 12) for $12.50. That's 42 cents an ounce. 4 times the cost of my homemade, and theirs isn't even organic! Now for a secondary comparison, I did find Canned Organic Butternut Squash in 15-Ounce Cans (Pack of 12) for $28.32. That's 16 cents an ounce for large cans, which is a much better price. But canned goods are lined with BPA, so we would be feeding him a hefty dose of BPA with his butternut. And it's still a good deal more expensive than the tasty homemade stuff. So I will have to say I'm feeling pretty good about my efforts today.

If you want to make your own pureed squash (butternut, acorn, pumpkin), wholesome baby foods has a good tutorial.

Happy Pi Day!

Here I am with my obligatory Pi Day post for 2010. This Pi Day is much different from last year's for me. Last year I was pregnant with my first child, wearing a pi shirt that Chris made for me, and making gluten-free pies for a pi day party. This year I have a 10 month old son, and to celebrate pi day I am ... wearing the pi shirt. And that is all. This mamma has too much going on to bake a gluten-free pie, or even to notice when the clock hits 1:59 on 3/14.

So since I have little to say about the holiday this year, I will leave you in better hands than mine, with Instructables' guide to Pi Day. For those of you who are able, eat a piece of pizza pi or a slice of apple pi for me, 'kay?

The new life of the baby mobile

As you probably know, before Zeke was born, I crocheted him a sea creature baby mobile. It didn't actually make its way to hanging above the crib until we actually got him a crib around 6 months, but he has had it there for a few months now, and he enjoyed swatting at the goldfish. Well, Zeke grew two inches in under two weeks, and suddenly was able to get a good grip on it (unbeknownst to us) and pull the whole mobile down. When I saw it on the floor, I picked it up and set it on top of the dresser, planning to rehang it later. Well, Zeke caught a glimpse of it and started reaching for it... for two days anywhere I moved it, he would see it and cry for it, until we finally just handed it to him to see what he would do with it. What he did was carry the whole thing around with him for days, until he finally managed to detach a goldfish and the octopus. At first I was thinking I should take it away from him before he messes them up. But then I decided, I made it for Zeke to enjoy, and he's enjoying it, so who cares if he drools all over them?

So here he is at 10 months old, and for a week now he's been carrying around the individual creatures, as well as sometimes carrying around the coral with the jellyfish attached. I would have to say this is currently his favorite toy... and since he never seems to care about any of his toys, I've really been enjoying watching him get excited over the sea creatures I made for him. The mobile has taken on new life. I don't think we'll be hanging it back up.