Baby Led Weaning.  It sounded like a great idea; the perfect way to avoid the troubles we had with weaning TB.  Chuck the food at Little Mister, let him pick what he wanted, hey presto! Solid food mastered. 

And he was doing so well.  At five months we decided to let him ‘play’ with food, pieces of fruit and veg.  He demolished apple and potato, carrot and broccoli were ok and green beans were sniffed at before being discarded. 

I thought the husband was fully on board.  Until I discovered, via twitpic I may add, that he’d given him some baby puree.  Traitor!  Being at work all day and certainly not around for most of Little Mister’s solid meals I had to bow to the husband’s judgement. 

The other morning I sat down to give Little Mister mushy food for the first time.  Porridge.  He’s been eating it by proxy for six months so it seemed like a fairly safe bet.  The look on his face after the first mouthful said that he wasn’t entirely sure but as he opened wide for more and more there was no denying it: he’s a porridge freak like his mother!

It didn’t take long for him to really get into the idea of things.  Before the bowl was even half way to empty he was grabbing at the spoon every time it was offered, jamming it into his mouth, determined to get every last scrap.  There was definite disappointment in his face when he realised he’d finished the entire bowl. 

Lunch time came and although we had a pouch of puree in the rucksack, the event we were attending had a rather nice buffet laid on.  I grabbed some fruit and veg sticks and a chicken breast for Little Mister and sat him down.  Chicken is apparently the next big thing in baby food because he didn’t want to let it go.  Cucumber wasn’t such a big hit, but I wasn’t expecting it to be.  Melon went down well although I made the mistake of cutting it wrongly and ended up having to hold it for him.  Little Mister’s idea of BLW is you holding up some food for him so he doesn’t have to bother holding it for himself.  Just lowering his head to the appropriate position is effort enough thank you very much. 

If there’s anything this has taught me it’s that there’s room for balance in our life.  BLW is great and certainly makes life easier in some situations, but purees also have their place.  We’ll be using both for the time being because if it works, why mess with it and Little Mister is clearly happy with that approach.

Maybe we’re doing it right after all.

When the husband told me Little Mister was on the move I didn’t quite believe him.  Sure, I’d seen the kid roll from back to front and then decide that he wanted someone else to roll him back, but I really didn’t think that was enough to propel himself under the armchair. 

And this weekend I plopped him on his playmat whilst I fixed three different breakfasts and when I went back to check on him, only moments later, he was already half way across the room. 

It seems that there’s little point in trying to rise up on your knees and crawl when you can roll across the floor to move in one direction and wiggle your bum a little to turn.  Now I see what the husband meant when he said that Little Mister was on the move.  I can also see the need for some urgent baby proofing and Lego removal.  Looks like our house won’t ever be the same again. 

The best kind of ‘day out’ reviews are the ones where other bloggers get to review the attraction alongside you.  On Saturday the husband and I rocked up to Millets Farm and their fabulous maize mazes along with Emma and Jon, Pippa and FlyFour, Hayley, Gayle, Catherine and Paula. 

The theme of Millets’ Maize Mazes for this year is clownin’ about and there’s plenty of fun to be had.  We started out on the smallest maze and traversed its paths searching for five colour points where you could paint your fingers different colours to check in.  We left the buggy behind but the ground was so hard that I reckon we could’ve got our monster truck around ok.  There were slides and hanging ropes to make your way through and plenty of ladybirds for the mini-beast obsessed TB to admire. 

Whilst we ate lunch and gossiped, TB went to try his hand at circus skills, becoming particularly taken with the Diablo, and some of the other kids checked out the sandpit.  Oh, and Hayley decided she needed cuddles with Little Mister. 

On the way to the pick your own fields, we stopped to let the kids on the carousel.  Well, I say kids but I think Emma was the most excited.  Of course TB was perfectly happy to take his favourite girl friend along with him. 

Whilst Hayley went off to find courgettes, the husband, Emma & Jon, Gayle and I went in search of strawberries.  It was a challenge to get even our monster truck along the rows whilst holding a half- full punnet but we managed it.  TB was particularly taken by picking his own strawberries and carefully examined every plant looking for the perfect fruit.  I was less discriminating and we soon had ourselves a punnet full of juicy, handpicked strawberries. 

As we made our way back to the farm shop we stopped to take a look at the raspberries; unfortunately they didn’t seem quite ripe yet.  I was betting we’d left it too late in the day and all the good ones had already been picked.  It was then I noticed we no longer had a buggy or a baby.  Hayley had made off with Little Mister again.  At least I know there’s always a willing babysitter!

The Millets Farm Shop had me salivating from the moment I stepped through the door.  It sells all manner of fresh fish, meats, sausages, cheeses, deli-snacks, frozen fruit and farm goods.  Man how I felt like a good barbeque after seeing all that. 

We headed back towards the mazes and as the kids played on the bouncy castle, tractors and in the sandpit, the husband and Hayley went to check out the larger mazes.  I don’t think I could’ve torn TB from the toys so I could go too.  We eventually managed to convince him to run around the Sheep [                     ] with J and then around the fort.  We took the buggy along both and with careful manoeuvring it wasn’t a problem. 

It w as a fab day out, as evidenced by the sleeping boys in the back of the car.  We’ll definitely be picking our own fruit and veg again and as for the farm shop, next time I’m going back with a freezer bag and stocking up.

^{Millets provided us with free entry to the mazes, lunch and a pun net of ‘pick your own’ strawberries for the day.  Thanks guys!}