Pasta...thoughts

At 10 Months MiniMe is still sporting a toothless grin, which makes some foods tough to mash up and swallow.  Something she has had a lot of trouble with is pasta.  If it is baked or in soup there is no problem and she is fine with fresh pasta and stuffed pastas like ravioli from the chilled section in the grocery store, it the dried stuff that she just can't manage.  It isn't like I am cooking it al dente, I am cooking it until soft...too soft for me and Dad, but it just isn't working for her.  

I swear Heinz used to make children's pasta shapes. Sure they were overpriced but I am pretyy sure the pasta was thinner so the noodles were softer.  I know the shapes were just a way to entice picky eaters, but I do believe they would be easier for MiniMe to mash up.  

When visiting my parents in Canada I found some bug shaped vegetable pasta at The Bulk Barn and decided to give it a try.  It takes less time than penne to cook until soft enough for MiniMe and she gobbled it all up before I could even start my own meal so I decided to bring some home with us. 

Earlier this week I made MiniMe some Bug Pasta tossed with butter, Parmesan cheese and flakes of baked salmon for dinner.  During her morning nap I baked a salmon fillet and left it to cool, when it was time for dinner I just cooked up a handful of pasta, mixed it with butter and cheese and added in some salmon.  Dad and I had the rest of the salmon mixed with penne, creme fraiche, sauteed courgette and chilli flakes.  I cooked MiniMe's pasta first and then used the same water to cook our penne so no extra pots to wash! 

Mile High Picnic

I have been working on a longer post about my recent adventure traveling across thr Atlantic with MiniMe, but I thought that it might be helpful to post about the feeding bit of our trip separtely and share my irrationaly worry about how difficult it was going to be to feed MiniMe during our long haul flight.  Totally irrational, I might add.... I needn't have worried.  

I was worried that she would make a mess, that she would be fussy, that she would starve, that it woukd be awful.  In the end it was so much better than I imagined.  

We have a pretty flexible approach to feeding and eating and It doesn't bother me if I end up spoon feeding MiniMe 3 meals in 1 day. I really don't believe it will harm her in anyway and, besides, if she doesn't want to eat she won't. Plus, she often skips a meal and nurses instead.  All this worked in our favour on the flight.  Of course, if she were older and used to 3 meals every day and only feeding herself it might have been different.  Then again, if I wasn't travelling alone with her I wouldn't have been worried at all.  

I did contact the airline to ask about baby food and allowances and the advice I was given was that while sterilised jarred baby food was available on board I was allowed to bring food from home.  Solids were fine (a reasonable amount for the duration of the flight only...so no carting bags and bags of stuff on board) and liquids would be subject to the security limit except for formula or breast milk which was treated separately.  

Our flights also worked in our favour, and once I really thought about our routine and how our normal meal times might fit with the flights it occured to me that we would only be in the air for one meal and she would hopefully sleep the rest of the time.  

To minimise mess I only took foods that were easy for MiniMe to handle, or for me to hold while she gummed. I packed her a pretty generous picnic before we left for the airport of Broccoli bites, cottage cheese pancakes, almond butter sandwiches, bread sticks and a little pot of hummus,a banana, a small yogurt (subject to liquid control) and some rice cakes.  I never intended for her to eat it all and thought some of it might just be good as a distration.  

MiniMe was able to have a large breakfast at home and then we shared "lunch" at the airport before boarding our short flight from Edinburgh to Amsterdam.  At the airport we shared an egg mayonaise sandwich and she also ate her yogurt and some banana.  Once landed and settled and waiting for our longer flight she had a bit of pancake and some sandwich.  By the time we boarded the plane and were up in the air and ready to eat she wasn't interested.  She was far too busy watching everyone.  The stewardess offered to bring me some baby food but I said no and thought that maybe later on I would get some.  Later on never came.  

MiniMe nursed on take off and landing and about every 2 hours in between. She didn't need solids.  

I am so glad I took too much food, even though I was sorry to have to throw a lot of it out.  There was every opportunity for her to become fussy and miserable but she managed to sleep, nurse and people watch.