Frozen peas with baby cereal

It works!  I have gotten over the saga with searching high and low for fresh green peas.  The solution - I bought a pack of frozen garden peas from a supermarket.  Of course, before I made my purchase, I read the labels on the packaging.  It says "Frozen Fresh" with garden peas being the only item listed in the ingredients list.  And the nutritional value table shows quite a good source of protein and did not have any significantly harmful contents.  Besides some sodium and carbo content, the rest looks harmless.  With that I made my decision to give it to my toddler.  I removed the skin from the peas; steamed the peas (without prior thawing) for about 15 mins and then mesh them with a fork.  It is a tasty treat for my little one, and she likes it as a side dish to her cereal meal.  I am happy that this is simple to prepare and nutritional for my girl.

Peas, Peas, Peas, what trouble you gave me?!

Over the weekends, I felt adventurous and decided to try a new dish for my baby.  I read of a recipe for steamed peas and felt like adding a little "greenery" to my baby's meals.  However, I could not be sure how a pea should be like - I could not find any bag of fresh peas from the supermarket.  Neither am I sure whether the frozen green peas were the correct ingredients.  Out of desperation to try the new dish, I bought a packet of snow peas and started peeling away the skin and extracting only the tiny, weeny peas inside the pod.  "Are these really the right peas?" I thought to myself.  Continuing my persistence and ignorance, I steamed these teeny weeny peas and fed my baby.  Surprisingly, she accepted the food without making any fuss.  And seemed to like more of it.  This is happy news to me.  But at the back of my mind, I am still uncertain how fresh peas should look like or in what form they come in.  Anyone knows?

Having a sore throat and going strong...

I am unlucky to be down with a sore throat for the past 2 days.  And today it seems to worsen, sending constant moderate pain signals.  And yes, I have been popping lozenges non-stop and making myself drunk with water.  And not to forget the numerous trips to the washroom with a full bladder.  But the pain still would not go away.  Sob sob... despite all these discomfort, there is never a rest day as a mom.  You literally have to be on duty 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.  I carried out my day as usual, trying to ignore the discomfort.  I bathed my baby, sent her to day care and then made my way to the office, beating the rush hour traffic and arrived on the dot before the boss came breathing down your neck for being late.  After a hard day's work, you arrived home with a second job of playing with the baby, clearing household chores, etc.  Sometimes I think to myself when will I ever get a good rest.  Sometimes I think to myself how easy it is to be a daddy instead.  Sometimes I think to myself that everything is worth it and I should not think anymore than just doing it.  I believe all moms out there will share similar sentiments with me.

Food cubes - for or against?

Frozen cubes of pureed food for babies - are they alright to give to babies and toddlers?  I have read many books that support the idea of making baby food in bulk, such as a week's supply, and freezing them into ice cubes for storage.  As a working mom, I have also been practicing this way of food preparation for my child.  Undeniably, this may not be the freshest way of preparing food for your baby, but it is definitely a great help to moms who are too busy to prepare every single meal from scratch.  A word of caution though, not all food can be frozen.  Some food will change texture or taste if they are frozen.  Therefore, I will always take caution and try out freezing a small sample to see how it turns out.

As my child grows up, I began to question the nutrition of frozen food.  But do not get me wrong, my girl is growing up well and she has been taking these food cubes (thawed and warmed upon serving) since I started weaning her on solids.  So the food cubes definitely have worked and helped me tremendously.  However, I once asked the PD regarding this and her response was a "no no" and that freshly prepared food is the only way.  Yep... no one can be the perfect mom... I carried on with the food cubes.

Recently, the worry about frozen food cubes came to my mind again.  This time round, I am thinking how best to extend frozen food concept to non-pureed food.  As my baby grows up, she should be taking food cut in bigger, chunky, bite size pieces.  And I wondered how I should prepare these, and yes, in a frozen food way.  I once tried freezing a piece of lettuce and when I thawed it, the texture changed and I get a droopy, soggy lettuce leaf.  I am now planning to try freezing cut fruits first, e.g. papaya or honeydew chunks and see how it turns out when thawed.  Hmmm... let's see how it goes.

Desowen is a steroid cream!!!

I just got to find out that a cream prescribed for some rash that my child has is a steroid cream!  I have read from magazines and heard from health seminars that PDs usually prescribe steroid cream as the first line of defence against rashes, fearing it might be some form of eczema, unless the child is allergic to steroid.  But even though with this knowledge, it still shocks me to hear from the nurse that this is a steroid cream, after having used it on my girl for the past two to three months... (I was not aware that it contains steroid when the doctor first prescribed this for her rash two months back).  When I use it on her now, I am more cautious to only apply a thin layer.  And thankfully, I have been diligently following the instruction of only applying two times a day and nothing more than that, especially now that I know it has steroids!

A long day for me

Today I prepared a week's supply of baby food for my 14 month old.  I made cauliflower, spinach, sweet potato, papaya and pear food cubes.  It was quite crazy... with my steamer working non-stop and me tearing the spinach in between caring for my girl.  Now it is 2am in the morning and I got to get up for work at 6am.  This leaves me with less than 4 hours of sleep to last a 12 hour day ahead... the life of a working mom!  Wish me sweet dreams... see ya next time!

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