You know you're a momma when...

During a rare moment of peace, I was browsing the net and found this fun little article about motherhood. It made me giggle so thought I'd share it with you all and share my thoughts on a few points too. So here goes:

7. FREEDOM! As a mum, any time to yourself is bliss, even if it's doing something as dull as shopping.

10. Momma's have an in built baby sensor that detects the slightest sound/movement of any child. For this reason I make hubby sleep with the baby monitor next to his head. He can sleep through anything, while I hear as soon as the boy makes a sound. When he was still sleeping in our room I woke whenever he rolled over!

12. Sad but true - sleep is what momma's crave most, even more than sex. Pre-baby our evenings went along the lines of put dinner on, do chores while it cooks, eat dinner in front of the TV, go to bed and enjoy naked time with hubby. Now, by the time we get to bed I'm shattered and often fall asleep before I've even got my clothes off. Began to realise we needed to come up with creative new tactics to fit our new lifestyle. Most recent tactic is to plan evening meals where you shove everything in a pan and throw in the oven for half hour. We put the boy to bed, one of us preps dinner while the other does chores, and then while dinner is cooking........ ;)

13. Same goes for a bath without rubber ducks/boats/other bath toys or a small child trying to push your head under the water when you try to wash your hair.

14. Yeah and if you thought pooing while someone is chatting to you is bad, try pooing when a small child is trying to shove your bum off the seat so they can look behind you and see what's going on!

15. And use wet wipes to wash on mornings when it all goes to pieces and you don't get time for a shower.

18. YES!!! I understand the boy is just discovering food and keen to try new things but I just want to be able to eat something, anything, without having to share it with him!

21. I'm working on it

24. Yep. In those first few weeks I dread to think how rarely I showered/brushed my teeth!

So if you want to bless us momma's, give us some child free time to lock ourselves in the bathroom, take a long soak in the tub and eat chocolate to our hearts content.

Autumn days when the grass is jewelled and the........

Autumn is officially here and winter is hot on its heels. Weather like this always puts me in the mood for pyjama days, baking, home made soup and mulled beverages. Thanks to hubby taking little J to Who let the dad's out this morning, I had plenty of free time for baking. I finally got round to making the cheese and ham muffins I mentioned the other week and can report they were a success.


I did however learn that forgetting to grease the muffin tin is a major error as they are now glued to the cake cases!

Way more exciting than the muffins is the very autumnal apple cake that I made. I thought I would share the recipe with you all, so here it is:

Apple Cake

125ml vegetable oil (original recipe says double that but I found it way too much and experimented a little)
2 medium eggs
200g caster sugar (original recipe says 250g but I found it too sweet. Extra sugar gives it a nice crust though)
275g plain flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp salt
500g apple (peeled, cored and diced)

1. Preheat the oven to 180C
2. Mix the oil and eggs until they go white and foamy
3. Add the sugar, flour, bicarbonate, cinnamon, vanilla essence and salt and mix it really well. You'll end up  with a super thick sticky mixture.
4. Fold in the diced apple. (Might be a bit of a challenge cos the mixture is so thick - certainly will work those arm muscles!)
5. Put it in a 20cm x 30cm tin that has been greased and floured. I didn't have one that size so used a 10 inch round tin instead and it turned out just fine.
6. Put it in the oven for about 40 mins and go put your feet up with a cuppa tea.
7. Check it's cooked through and then leave it in the tin for 10 mins before you take it out. (Just enough time to make another brew ready to enjoy with a nice warm slice of fresh cake!)

For other great baking ideas, check out my beer bread recipe or Christmas cookies recipe.

Happy baking

The things we do for our kids?!

I think if people fully knew what parenthood involved ahead of time no one would ever have kids. There are certain things that you find yourself doing as a parent that are just gross. For example:

1. Clearing up sick.  Went down to get little bear up from his nap the other day and found him totally covered in sick. He was sat chatting to his bear with sick all down the side of his face, all down his front, all over his sheets and his poor bear was drowning in it! Yuck. I think I handled it pretty well - stripped the boy's clothes off, lifted him out of bed, bundled it all in a heap inside his bedsheet so I wouldn't have to look at it and shoved it in the washing machine. Phew, done!

2. Clearing up poo. Changing nappies is pretty gross but you kind of get used to it. Poo floating in the bath though, that's another story. I'm not so bothered if it's just him in the bath but we often have family bathtime where we all jump in together and splash around. The other day the bath was full of bubbles, we were all having fun. Then the boy started squatting and pulling 'that face'. By the time we realised it was too late, the damage was done. Trouble was there were so many bubbles we couldn't even see for sure what he'd done. You knew it was there but couldn't tell exactly where. Was that a rubber duck that just touched my foot or was it.......the POO!?! Hubby jumped out of the bath lightning fast and I wasn't far behind him.

3. Touching/eating gross stuff. Little J loves his food and loves to try new things - especially things on other people's plates. Recently he realised that sharing is a two way thing and that he can let other people eat his food too. He's started offering us fistfuls of his food every now and then - a half eaten rice cake, a cheerio that's been on the floor, some pasta that's been in his mouth and been spat out again. As a parent this leaves me with a dilemma. I really want to encourage this new found desire to share with others......but I really don't want to eat that stuff. In the end I decided to just grit my teeth, smile and say 'thank you hunny' as he shoves his slimy little handful of food in my mouth. Yuck!

So why do we have kids?! It's not all bad. In fact, there are some great moments. Play time with little J is amazing. His laughter is addictive. Today he discovered how fun slides are and squealed with enjoyment every time he hit the crash mat at the bottom. He even discovered how to go down on his own on his belly. From now on trips to the park will involve something more than him insisting on playing on the swing for the entire time - hooray! 

Playing hide and seek with a one year old is also awesome. J thought he was so clever hiding under a blanket while I pretended to not see him and look everywhere else in the room. He couldn't even contain his excitement at how clever he was. As I pretended to look behind the coffee table he giggled with glee thinking "silly mummy can't find me". So Cute!!!