First off, thanks so much for celebrating my $100K milestone with me!
We had a nice weekend all to ourselves, which was perfect after my awful week at work. We were talking today about when AS hopefully has a baby; how we're going to try and take some parental leave with her. NT is fairly sure his job will let him take leave; they're a smaller place and all very supportive of our family, so I think it's possible, though not guaranteed. My job? I think it'd be a harder sell, since I'm not going to be biologically involved or anything. But I'm thinking I could take sick leave for the first week or two. Wondering how I could approach my HR or supervisor about it. Most people know, sort of, about my relationship, but we're part of a much bigger company that's owned by an even bigger holding company, and lately they've been into trying to squeeze us for every drop of work they can get out of us...anyway, I still think I should be able to take sick leave, which I never use, as family health time or something. And as I told NT and AS, if they won't work with me, they might have a date with Mr. Letter of Resignation. They're really not offering me much these days, so it wouldn't take much to push me over the line...
Whoops, didn't mean to do that. Just changed the post title a bit to warn you. ;-) All I was going to write about was that we've been making AA's food from scratch. We're doing it mainly because it seems like the optimal healthy choice, but it also seems to be much cheaper. $2 worth of organic veggies can make nearly a week's worth of food, versus the prepared baby food that's like 60 cents for a tiny jar (more if you go organic).
It's pretty easy and kind of fun. I just cook the veggies or fruit in water until soft, puree with some of the cooking liquid in our Vitamix blender, and strain it through a sieve into a Tupperware. I did keep it for up to a week at first, but then I read that you should only keep baby food for up to 3 days. So now, if I think it's going to last more than that, I spoon it into an ice cube tray, pry the cubes out the next day, and store them in plastic baggies, pulling out a few cubes the night before for the next day's food.
We found out the daycare lady's been giving her regular baby food, which is fine except you're supposed to introduce new ingredients 4 days apart, and now I have no idea if that was happening. LOL, oh well. Someone else warned me that these experienced older daycare providers sometimes "go rogue" so I wasn't exactly surprised or upset. It made me feel better, actually, because sometimes I'd only go a couple days before introducing a new food and I'd feel all guilty, but I won't worry anymore. Anyway, we told her we'd bring homemade food for AA most days. It's gonna be a bigger deal when she's old enough for meat, because we want to keep her vegetarian except for fish! But we'll cross that bridge later.
It's been really fun introducing new foods. AA likes most of it; so far she's been iffy on green beans and potato (though it may have been the texture); rejected banana, avocado and butternut squash; and really liked sweet potato, peas and carrots. Oh, and she LOVES pears, apples and plums!
Tonight I made carrot puree (with a small potato blended in) and added some powdered ginger (her first spice!) to take to daycare. Should last her 3 days. She's got veggie medley (pea-carrot-sweet potato-potato) and plums defrosting for dinner.
If you have a good blender already, it's a really cost-conscious choice, and pretty healthy too!
Homemade baby food (but first a rant)
September 13th, 2010 at 05:02 am
September 13th, 2010 at 05:29 am 1284352162
September 13th, 2010 at 02:14 pm 1284383657
Couldn't you use the FMLA - I would think that if the company doesn't recognize your family, that would be discrimination - they certainly should work with you. If not, I'd be leaning towards a letter of resignation, too!
September 13th, 2010 at 04:03 pm 1284390215
September 13th, 2010 at 06:19 pm 1284398341
September 13th, 2010 at 06:59 pm 1284400750
September 13th, 2010 at 07:34 pm 1284402867
Smaller companies are not subject to FMLA (less than 50 employees?) But, if it is under a larger company, maybe they are subject to FMLA. You will need to find out what your rights are - they may not be much.
I read the other comments and felt they were a little overly optimistic. My employer does not have to allow any time off to fathers in my office. He will generally let people use vacation time if it is not too disruptive. We have less than 10 people though - time off can bevery disruptive to the office. I have more rights as a biological mother than anyone else would. My only "rights" were to have my held job while I Was on pre/post pregnancy disability.
September 13th, 2010 at 07:57 pm 1284404275
And yes, we do have FMLA in my office; I used it for my maternity leave.
September 15th, 2010 at 06:09 am 1284527373