Gear: Six to Nine Months

Axel, 2013

The biggest change in months six through nine? Mobility.

Though we were pretty prepared for a newborn by the time Axel arrived, I feel like we were able to get away with a certain degree of minimalism for the first few months of his life. We had a baby shower, got tons of hand me downs, bought some things second hand, and eventually assembled the nursery. But we certainly didn't go crazy either.

At around the six month mark it seemed like Axel was growing like a weed and also so much more into toys, blocks, anything that made noise when you dropped it on the floor; he required a certain amount of new stuff.

We've had to ramp up the big purchases lately, though hopefully a lot of them will last through his toddlerhood.

1. Skip Hop Playspot Foam Tiles
I tried to find the least offensive foam floor tiles possible. The Skip Hop ones in green seemed to do the trick. Axel can spend hours trying to take them apart and since we have hardwood floors, they were a good option to have when he was learning to roll, sit, and crawl. While he's all about pulling up on the furniture these days, he still recognizes his floor tiles as his little play area, and it's nice to contain some of the chaos there.

2. Fisher Price Rainforest Jumperoo
This thing is pretty darn ugly, let's face it. But when Axel tried it out on a playdate at a friend's place, he was so clearly loving it I couldn't resist. We borrowed ours and will probably give it back in a month or so, as Axel is starting to balk at feeling contained by it. It's still pretty good for 15 minute periods when you need to make breakfast or are just exhausted from baby wrangling.

3. JJ Cole Outdoor Blanket
We just had a lovely picnic on our building's green roof and I can tell this waterproof blanket will get a lot of use for the rest of the spring and summer.

4. Old Navy Baby Clothes
I love artful and original baby clothes, but as Axel grows like a weed, I can't really argue with $7 pants and $10 onesies.

5. Farm to Baby
I've extolled the virtues of our baby food delivery service before, but this was a great way of easing the transition to solids. We've also stocked up on pouches from Ella's Kitchen for when we're in transit.

6. Maxi Cosi Pria 70 Carseat
We went to Mini Jake and basically got the only convertible car seat they had (I trust their judgment.) It's much comfier than the hand-me-down infant car seat we had, and it served us well on our last 7 hour road trip.

Dinner, Solved (Part One)

via Serious Eats

A friend had a code for a free week of delivery from Blue Apron, a subscription service that sends you the ingredients and recipe cards for three complete meals a week.

I had all but forgotten about signing up to give it a try it until the rather impressive box arrived yesterday (handy, because we had exactly zero plans for dinner and hadn't been able to get to the grocery store because we were away over the weekend.) You can sign up for a meat and poultry service or a vegetarian service.

We wound up making a delicious chicken satay with rice and a green tomato salad. My pictures didn't really turn out, but basically, everything in the recipe is pre-portioned like this:

via Katie at the Kitchen Door

You can check out Katie at the Kitchen Door for another review. The meat comes from Pat LaFrieda, a very fancy butcher in New York. It was all very straightforward and I liked the fact that we weren't going to waste any produce or esoteric oils (so often we have a giant bunch of cilantro that wilts in the fridge because we just needed a few sprigs.) The tiny bottles of things like sesame oil or mirin were pretty darn cute as well.

Will and I love to cook, and so this service suited us; it feels like you're really making dinner from scratch (but without any advance planning required.) We were saying a month or so of this would be the perfect gift for someone with a new baby, with the caveat that they'd have to like to cook in the first place to find this a real time saver.

I felt a bit guilty about all of the packaging that arrives with it, but I was glad to hear the box lining is biodegradable. In any case, the results were far better than my usual there's-nothing-in-the-fridge go-to, turkey tacos. The meals are portioned for two people, so the one drawback is no leftovers.

Like Farm to Baby, our baby food delivery service, this is definitely a luxury I'd only really justify because I'm working full time. Hey, whatever gets you through the week, right?

11211 Love

Williamsburg, 2013

So Farm to Baby has kindly offered friends of Williamsburg Baby $25 of their first order through February 28th. Just go to the online order area and enter the code WBURGBABY.

For Axel's review, go here!

Farm to Baby

Williamsburg, 2013

I was lucky enough to have coffee with the lovely Lauren Utvich of Farm to Baby this week.

Farm to Baby is a local service that delivers fresh baby food in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Lauren, who is a serious foodie, sources vegetables from local farms in the Hudson Valley, New Jersey, and Long Island, and makes seasonal baby fare with them. The menu changes each week and purees arrive by bike messengers in lovely little glass jars inside a cool, insulated pack. The service picks up the jars when you are finished so there's no waste in the process.

This week's offerings included carrots, sweet potato, turnip, and rutabaga and Lauren was nice enough to bring some samples for Axel to try (a roaring success.)

Our transition to solids has been mostly seamless, and I've been gamely making my own purees using whatever vegetables we have on hand and my immersion blender. The only hitch is that it's sometimes a messy process, and I'm not always able to get to a farmer's market or find an interesting range of things to blend. I haven't enjoyed the switch up as much as I might have, since I feel like I'm now worried about leaving breast milk and food for him during the week.

I first read about Farm to Baby when I was pregnant and thought: "Genius." As we've started to introduce Axel to food, I've instinctively avoided store bought options. Even the many organic options out there are often high in sugar content (since they use things like pears to mask the taste of things like spinach.)

So when I'm feeling overwhelmed by work or a particularly manic week, I love the idea of knowing that Axel's food is being prepared as I'd like to do it (in an ideal world.)

On our pediatrician's recommendation, we've avoided using baby cereals (on the basis that babies don't really need "white" food and benefit from early exposure to lots of flavors.) So Farm to Baby is a great way of keeping his taste buds on their toes. If taste buds have toes, that is.

Anything to keep me sane!

11211 Love

Enid's Bloody Mary

More from the research trenches today!

I haven't seen any construction at the site of the new Whole Foods, so that might take some time. Plus there are some snags in the plans for Bushwick Inlet Park, which is a shame.

But! There is so much afoot in the neighborhood that I'm excited about. The McCarren Park Pool, which I've gone on and on about before, opens on the 28th. I will be there as much as I possibly can until baby arrives. Then, there's a new movie theatre coming our way (late summer or early fall.) Nighthawk, which offers Parents & Babies movie screenings (see below), is amazing but I think it's awesome to have more options. We usually go to Union Square if we want to see a big blockbuster, but when bambino is here that might be annoying.

On the kiddo front, I just checked out the most recent issue of WG (a free local paper covering happenings in Williamsburg and Greenpoint), and there's some great info on resources for parents and children in the nabe. The story isn't online for some reason, so I've culled some ideas from it below for babies and new moms and added them to my resources list (a lot of the info is for older kids so I left that out for now.) All credit is due to my former neighbor and fellow reporter, Shana Liebman!

1) Farm to Baby
Love this small business idea. You can sign up for delivery of homemade, seasonal organic baby food. Plans start at $35 a week for babies 4 months and older.

2) Mighty Mamas and Baby Boot Camp
Two group workout options for new mothers (babies too.) Mighty Mamas meets in McCarren park, while Baby Boot Camp uses space at Caribou Baby and the Betz Method Space just off the park for their class Strollfit.

3) Diaper Kind
An eco-friendly cloth diaper laundry service that services Williamsburg. I don't know if we'll go this route (or at lease, I'm going to get out of the newborn survival stage first), but it's great to have the choice. Diaper Kind seems pretty reasonably priced at $35 or $50 a week. You need to get set up with all the right gear first.

4) Parents & Babies Movies at Nighthawk Cinema
I couldn't find info about this on Nighthawk's site, but there is a Facebook group you can join.