Tender beefy chunks

I find myself not doing things by the book so much with Grady. I'm following his lead more, and I don't worry about every little thing. Sometimes this can backfire, like when Grady was sick--Mike was pushing me to take him to the ER, and I kept insisting he was fine, it was just a cold and we would wait it out. I'm glad Mike pushed, because I don't know how serious things would have gotten, and we could have ended up in the hospital a lot longer than five days.

Most of the time though, this relaxed attitude is working out for us. I find Grady to be a pretty good baby, going with the flow and (usually) happy about it. He's sleeping through the night, and by that I mean he starts with a 4-6 hour stretch in his crib and then wakes to nurse a bit and spends the rest of the night in bed with us. This works out great, as I get some good rest and I also get that sweet snuggle time. With Ev, I was obsessed with when he was going to stop night waking, and when he'd sleep in his own bed. This time around, I'm enjoying having G in our room because I know it's going to be over before long.

I'm also not obsessing about the food thing. With Evan, I followed a strict schedule of when to start solids, did all the fruits and veggies by color, and was terrified he'd choke on a Cheerio. Grady's been slow to start solids, and he's not really a big fan of all things pureed. I'll give him a few more weeks I think before it's on to the good stuff. He seems to prefer the savory flavors--he's tried tomato sauce and Italian dressing, and he loves a good dill pickle. He's gotten a taste of cake frosting and chocolate too, and he liked both--he even tried to steal a KitKat from Daddy over the holidays. That's not to say G's going to be eating lots of junk, but I'm finding he prefers a taste of mashed-up veggies from our tofu stir fry to that jarred business. And I'm good with that. Wait until he has my pork and sauerkraut.