The Allman Brothers, whoa. Talk about a Throw Back Thursday.

I am referring to actual peaches here. And clementines. And strawberries and eggs and waffles and food food food. I hate calculating Babystar’s food. It feels so much like work and the rest of this blog is so much fun. I don’t want to be a food accountant when I grow up or ever. But I am addicted to accuracy so I have to include the money we spend on her food or the whole thing is RUINED. Why yes, I am super fun to live with, why do you ask?

This is a list of all the food I purchased in July strictly for Babystar. This is not all the food that she ate. She still shares with me a lot. But I am not going to calculate how much two bites of steak costs. I would have eaten those two bites if she didn’t. And I am not going to subtract the fruit I eat from the pounds of strawberries or bags of clementines we buy because they would have gone bad before she ate them anyway. Basically, I buy a lot more fruit (and cheese, weirdo baby) now than I ever did before. I buy almost the exact same amount of vegetables (now that she’s on her puree strike). I buy way more Cheerios. I don’t eat her gross veggie melts. You get it. Maybe you get it. Let me know. I’m trying to do this right.

• nectarines (12) $8.04
• watermelon (3x)  $9.46
• canned diced tomatoes  (5x) $4.95
• zucchini (3x)  $4.50
• so many bananas  (infinity)  $10.78
• huge amount of Cheerios at Costco  $5.99
• fancy precut pineapple  $5.79
• so much cheese slices, deli and otherwise  $18.23
• clementines by the bag (3x)   $9.97
• cucumber  $0.50
• deli ham  $3.30
• ditalini pasta  (2x)  $5.38
• strawberries (7x)  $21.00
• peaches (3x)  $2.49
• quinoa waffles (3x)  $10.77
• Gerber fruit/veggie/yogurt melts  (13x)  $34.97  (OMFG!)
• string cheese (1x) $2.50
• Gerber pasta bowl  $2.39
• sweet potato pancakes at a restaurant  $4.99
• mozzarella toast at a restaurant  $4.99
• fried rice at a restaurant (3x)  $23.97

Total $194.96. What? Really?? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH OF THIS FOOD SHE THROWS ON THE FLOOR?!? Thank goodness breastmilk is still free.

Protip #1: If you have a town center like place where you hang out, or you live in a city or something, get a single banana from a grocery store as a snack when out and about. It will only cost about twenty cents. And if you are very lucky, that grocery store might have free samples out and then you get a whole baby buffet. I love our local Harris Teeter’s Baby Buffet.

Protip #2: You can make a pretty healthy baby pasta by stewing together diced tomatoes and chopped, peeled zucchini. And use tiny noodles (I like ditalini but I wish I could find a whole wheat version) so you don’t have to cut up the food. I do about 70/30 veggie to pasta ratio and since the ‘sauce’ is so chunky, Babystar can feed herself with her fingers. Which she insists on doing all the time now.

RAISING BABYSTAR:  $11,671.09