Going Up?

I took LO with me to a department store yesterday.  Now that I travel with a stroller, I've learned where the elevators are in every store in town.  We waited patiently for it to come, along with the other mommies, old ladies and general lazy women that usually collect there.  From behind me, I hear, "How old is your baby?"  It's another new mommy with, let's just say, a very rotund baby.  "Ten months," I say.  "Oh, so her first birthday is in March?"  "No, it's February.  She's almost 11 months," I reply, caught once again rounding down LO's age.  The mommy shared that her baby is 5 months and she started solids at 4 months.  She loves to eat.  We started LO on solids at 6 months per our doctor's advice, but it seems like there's no real rule to this feeding thing.

I wish there was a definitive baby feeding manual.  I have a handout from a local expert detailing in not so much detail how to introduce your baby to solids through the first year.  A friend lent me a Beaba Babycooker and to prove my mettle as a mommy, I've tried to make most of LO's meals myself.  I started with basics -- pureed apples (her fave), pears, yams, etc.  The first time we gave her solids, I made her pureed peas and strained them.  A whole freezer bag yielded two tablespoons of peas.  There has to be an easier way, I thought.  So I bought it in jars.

In effort to develop LO's pallete, I consulted my trusty expert's handout for tips.  Avoid high nitrate foods such as homemade carrots, turnips, beets and other root vegetables as this could poison your baby.  I quickly put away the turnips I was chopping and rummaged through the fridge.  Pasta!  I always see cool moms at restaurants giving their kids pasta and veggies, so why couldn't LO try it?  My natural cooking disabilities mean I naturally over-boil pasta, so this would be perfect for LO.  The pediatrician said avoid wheat, nuts and shellfish, so I boiled up some rice pasta, chopped it up and set it before LO.  She stuffed it in her mouth and made the humming sound she does when she likes eating something.  Then she started choking.  She expelled the offending rice elbow and the world was good again.  We tried again a few days later with corn elbow pasta and she ate an entire bowl with no problem.  I feel like she needs more flavor, more variety.  A friend in the UK recommended baby cookbooks by Annabel Karmel, but if anyone has recommendations for other (easy) baby cookbooks, please let me know.