Homemade baby food

The past few days I've been busy filling the freezer with home made baby food and thought I would share with you a couple of favourite recipes...

Red Pasta Sauce

I put some diced red pepper, sliced carrot, red onion and a handful of leftover baby tomatoes in the oven for half hour at 220C and then blitzed the heck out of them with a hand blender. Made a really yummy pasta sauce that the boy loves as the pepper and carrot give it a natural sweetness.

Baby carbonara

Cook up some baby size pasta or spaghetti broken into small pieces. Drain the pasta and stir in 15g (1 slice) of diced ham, 3 table spoons of Greek yoghurt and a spoon of grated cheese and warm through. This was another instant winner and hubby really liked it too!

Anyone got any other good recipe suggestions I can try?

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

What a day! Spent the morning at The Bakery having brunch with friends and their kids and then a baby shower in the afternoon.

Due to the boy's recent sleep trouble I decided to walk into town from Royal William Yard in the hope it would help him get a longer nap. As we strolled along in the sunshine, the boy fast asleep, it seemed a crazy amount of motorbikes were out in the sun too. I had never before noticed just how loud motorbikes are!! As we came to traffic lights with a motorcyclist sat nosily revving I just wanted to say "shush will you - you'll wake the kid!" Thankfully he kept on sleeping.

Once we got close to town we had another challenge to the boy's sleep - a whole selection of emergency vehicles screaming past. But still he kept on sleeping.

Next we arrived in the city centre to find huge crowds of people and lots of events going on, meaning lots of noise. I tried a whole host of alternative routes through town but it seemed everywhere I turned there was a live band or trumpet player or some other such racket. As I turned down one street I was greeted by a full on marching band coming straight towards us. You've gotta be freaking kidding me!?! I quickly dived down an alleyway and into a car park to avoid them. And still the boy kept on sleeping.

Finally (after taking an hour to do a 30 minute walk due to all the detours) we arrived at the baby shower. Josiah was still soundly asleep and having the best nap he's had in weeks and weeks.

And then Ella-Sophia came to say hello and poked him in the face. Ooops!

Never mind, he didn't seem bothered and had a fun afternoon meeting new friends.

Sleep is for the weak!

Sigh....it's been another one of those weeks.

Nap transition + sleep regression + growth spurt + learning to crawl + obsession with his door bouncer + a whole lot of chattiness = very little sleep in the Gallagher house hold!

The 8 month sleep regression is the WORST. Just when it felt like things were going well - BAM!! And it's not like a growth spurt that lasts just a few days. It's been over a month now of wondering if the boy will ever sleep again. I am now realising how much I took for granted Josiah's good sleep habits. I'm finding it really hard to go from having a kid who keeps to a pretty similar routine each day to not having a clue when he might sleep, how long for, or if I'll ever make it out of my pyjamas again let alone the house! Also, I'd got used to getting up once a night to feed him, being back in bed 10 mins later and then not hearing from him again until 7am. Now he's waking at least once before we've even gone to bed and is feeding 2 or 3 times a night. It feels like we've taken huge steps backwards and is frankly depressing.

Last night I found myself googling "8 month sleep problems" - not to find advice but simply to read about parents having an even worse time of it than us so as to cheer myself up!

As I sat bleary eyed scouring Google for signs of hope, I came across a couple of great websites that helped me to see the funny side of things. I thought I would share with you my favourite articles and hope they make you smile too.

Baby no sleeping
The Cult of Motherhood
Good times, bad times

Things I wish I'd known - Part 2

Welcome to part two of my series on things I wish I had known sooner about parenting.

Today's topic is TOYS!

When buying toys before Josiah's birth we didn't really know what we were doing and just got what we thought would be good. As time has gone by we have been surprised by what toys have and haven't been a success. For example, we got ourselves a Blossom Farm Sit Me Up Cosy thinking it would be better than a standard play mat. Josiah loves the animals that come with it and enjoys their sounds and textures and how easily the legs fit in his mouth. However, the sit me up cow bit has been very little use at all to be honest. Whenever we used it to help prop him up while learning to sit he just fell sideways and got his head wedged between the two rings! For our next child I will definitely be investing in a play mat with hanging toys above it instead.

Now, instead of me telling you what toys aren't good, let me tell you which ones have come out as favourites. Here's my tops toys list:

1. Stacking cups. Josiah has a set with holes in the bottom making them fun for pouring water out of at bathtime. The bright colours, building towers and knocking them down, learning to put them inside each other and being able to pretend to drink out of them all make these a huge success in our house.

2. Wooden spoon. Great for teething, for banging things during the 'learning about noises' phase and generally just fun to wave around to work on spacial awareness. Be sure to only give your child an old well worn wooden spoon so as to avoid splinters.

3. Teddy bear. This is Josiah's bedtime bear. He loves cuddling his bear as he falls asleep and now he's a bit older he falls asleep chatting to his bear (cute but kinda annoying at 4am). The knot in the hat is also great for sucking on and teething. The bear is so light and soft that he has been able to pick him up and throw him around the cot from a very young age and I have no fear of him accidentally being smothered by the thing. I've had to go out and buy a spare bear so I can wash the original as it's been so chewed and well loved.

4. Books. Josiah loves books and now at 8 months old is really loving ones that have different textures he can feel. He also has a couple of cloth books that he loves because he can turn the pages by himself and the pages make different noises when he turns them. Some favourites we have found are...
Squishy turtle and friends - a cloth book that has an octopus with felt legs, shiny fish, an oyster to open and various other textures to feel.
Poppy Cat's Farm - a board book with cut out windows that teaches animal noises while playing hide and seek.
That's not my snowman - there's a whole range of these board books with different textured bits on every page.
Baby Touch - Rainbow - he doesn't actually own this one, just gets super excited looking at it in the book shop while daddy reads boring books. It's a brightly coloured board book with textured bits on each page. It's part of a series of textured books teaching things from animals to vehicles.
Baby Teether Book - a board book with a chewy teething bit and rattle. Great for taking when you're travelling as it's like 3 toys in one.

5. Textured soft toys. Josiah has a toy dog that has to be one of the best designed toys he owns. It's got different colours and textures, a mirror, rings round its ankles that make it easy to grab and teeth on, a jingly sound and skinny legs he can easily grab. He loves this thing so much he's almost chewed the poor things ear off! Here's a video of when he first got the dog for Christmas last year.

Lamaze do a great range of these brightly coloured, multi textured, noise making toys.

How about you? What toys would you recommend?

Things I wish I'd known - Part 1

As parents we are learning all the time. Let's be honest, we just make it up as we go along and hope we don't kill/maim/psychologically scar the kid. There are so many things I wish I had known before instead of having to find out the hard way so I thought I'd write a couple of posts about what I've learnt.

Today's topic - food.

We're well into introducing solids to Josiah now and he loves his food. One of the biggest difficulties is deciding what to give him. I think one of the main things I have discovered along the way is that food companies may seem like they want to help give my child the best but really they just want my money. What makes me say that? Here's a couple of things:

Food companies sell a whole variety of foods claiming to be suitable from 4 months old. They send samples of these foods to parents from before their child has even reached 4 months. Is this because feeding solids from 4 months is good for my child? No. (Health professionals all advise waiting until 6 months) It's because they want to get us to buy their products from as early as possible.

Do not be naive enough to think that because something is designed for babies it will be more healthy than adult food. I was horrified to discover how much sugar and salt baby cereals have compared to some adult cereals. Heinz baby porridge has 23.5g sugar and 0.15g salt per 100g and Cow and Gate porridge has 0.12g salt and over 38g of sugar per 100g! Compare this to Weetabix with only 4.4g sugar per 100g (but 0.26g salt per 100g so the baby cereals win on that one). The clear winner though has to be Ready Brek with only 1g sugar and less than 0.1g salt per 100g. So why exactly am I buying over priced baby cereal?!?

Several baby food companies send their own 'guide to weaning' type leaflets to parents. Some of them just blatantly try to push their products on you but a few seemed actually helpful with recipes for home-made purées and lists of suggested first foods to try. All the food companies suggested baby rice as a great starter food and sent plenty of vouchers and free samples. In some ways it is a great starter food - smooth texture, simple flavour. What they failed to mention is that it is one of the top causes of constipation in babies. Others in the list of top 5 poo stoppers include apples and bananas which are found in almost all shop bought fruit purees. The first meal we introduced Josiah to was breakfast and we began feeding him the sample packs of rice cereal we had been sent by different companies. Sure enough (just as we had him sleeping well at night and even a couple of nights with zero night feeds) he got super constipated, didn't poo for almost 2 weeks and couldn't sleep properly day or night from the discomfort. Almost 2 months later we are still trying to get him back to the great sleep habits he had before! Thanks a lot Cow and Gate baby rice :(

For unbiased advice on foods that are good for your baby try this site

Do you have any weaning advice to share? I'd love to hear your comments.

"You are my sunshine...."

I'm sat looking out of the window at a gloriously sunny evening and wishing so much that I could go outside (but I'm guessing leaving an 8 month old in bed home alone while I catch some sun would be considered bad parenting). I LOVE sunshine and this past week has been like a breath of fresh air to me. It's amazing how much difference a little sun can make. Instead of staying in my pyjamas as long as possible and avoiding going out of the house I've been dying to get outside at any and every opportunity. As a result I've made so much more out of my week than usual.

As well as the sunshine, there has also been much more sleep this week. Josiah is finally taking good daytime naps which has helped my stress levels no end. He is such a joy to be around when he's happy and well rested. It's insane how grown up he's getting - he's a proper little boy now and his personality is really coming out. He plays games, laughs at jokes, reaches out to be picked up, initiates kisses, asks for juice (by reaching for his cup) or more food (by yelling and pulling a grumpy face), tries to make conversation, talks in his sleep, tries to 'read' things, reaches out for things in shops (note to self: beware accidental shoplifting!) and chats to anyone who will listen.

I feel I have so much to be thankful for this week so I'm going to take this opportunity to praise God for:

• Catching up with friends I've not seen in a while
• Trips to the park
• Family walk in the sunshine before bedtime
• Sleep!
• My wonderfully supportive husband
• A child free morning and coffee with a friend while Josh and Josiah went to 'Who let the dad's out?'
• Singing worship songs while Josh played guitar and Josiah sat transfixed
• Sunny afternoons spent on the roof terrace
• Improptu meet ups with friends
• Time to relax and enjoy my husband in the evenings instead of him being out lots
• Watching Jesus Story Book Bible DVD together as a family and discovering new insights 
• Tea and toast time - sitting round the table together and taking a break before bedtime routine begins
• Lots of smiles and laughter - seeing our boy happy and healthy

What about you? What are you thankful for this week?

I think his sleep function is broken!?!

The last week or so suddenly sleep has become a big issue in our household again. I'm starting to realise how much I take Josiah's good sleep for granted. For me, having to try for half hour to get him to sleep only to give up and attempt another nap an hour later seems a huge deal and is really frustrating. I forget that for a lot of parents it is just a normal day in their household. I am very blessed to have a child who takes a nap for an hour just after breakfast so I can get dressed and do chores and then sleeps for an hour or two around lunch giving me time to eat in peace. When he suddenly stopped sleeping I got really fed up of being stuck at home spending the entire day (or so it felt) trying to get him to sleep. I got nothing done and lived in my pyjamas for days on end cos he never stayed asleep long enough for me to shower and get dressed. I felt gross, stressed and a little resentful. Then it dawned on me just how much is going on in Josiah's life right now. He's learned so much recently he must be buzzing and, like a student revising for a test or someone preparing for a big event, he must find it really difficult to switch off and sleep.

In the past 2-3 weeks he has learnt the following:
1. Rolling over in both directions
2. Drinking from a sippy cup
3. How to say Dadadada (as well as a variety of other new sounds)
4. Turning the pages and lifting flaps in books
5. Getting in the correct position to start crawling (no crawling yet though)
6. Relearnt how to drink from a bottle (been so long since he tried he had forgotten but he's mastered it again and now can hold the bottle himself)
7. Using his hands to splash water everywhere in the bath (who knew so little water could cause so much mess?!)
8. Circling his wrists
9. Playing hide and seek (so cute and he thinks it's hilarious)
10. Biting and chewing food
11. Opening mummy's ipad case
12. Turning on the playstation controller
13. Pressing buttons on the TV remote
14. Playing on the swings and holding on properly so we don't lose him! (he giggles and squeals with excitement when you push him higher)
15. Wiggling off the sofa to sit on the floor and reach things he wants on the coffee table
16. Remembering when his favourite bit of a song is coming up and giggling just before you get to it
17. Understanding what light switches do and trying to turn them on as he goes past (not strong enough yet, thankfully)
18. Putting his arms up towards us when we reach out to pick him up
19. Giving kisses (even gave a kiss to someone other than mummy and daddy today and without any prompting either)
20. Taking his bib off
21. Reaching out to hold hands with other kids when playing together
22. Robbing toys off other kids when playing together
23. Putting his feet in his mouth
24. Drinking out of a grown up cup
25. Standing while hold on to furniture

I'm sure there's more but you get the idea - so much to process it's like me trying to fall asleep when I have lists of chores and errands and random thoughts going round my head (i.e near impossible to get to sleep and then you wake up in the middle of the night thinking 'did I remember to.....'). I really need to learn some patience, cut the boy some slack and remember he wants to sleep just as much as I want him to sleep.

The weaning adventure continues...

We're a few weeks into our weaning adventure now so I thought I'd share how it's going so far.

In the beginning it was so simple and carefree - just occasionally handed the boy a bit of what I was eating if I happened to be eating something healthy for him. He loved food from the start and is keen to get his hands on things and explore.

A few weeks on we began introducing one regular meal a day - breakfast. Things began to get a bit more hard work. No more breast feeding him in bed and then rolling over and falling back asleep again - now I have to get up and make cereal. The plus side is I now eat breakfast myself a lot more often. Most nights I was expressing milk to make his rice cereal with the next day so that made it seem even harder work. Thankfully I soon discovered 'just add water' cereal varieties that are much nicer than the boring baby rice. We also discovered that baby rice causes constipation so that box of cereal has now been retired to the back of the cupboard for the treatment of diarrhea only.

One of the major challenges so far has been dealing with belly ache. There's nothing worse than spending 45 mins fighting to get a kid to nap cos he's got bellyache from eating too close to bedtime. Actually, the worst was when he didn't poo for nearly a week. One night his belly was giving him so much trouble that he woke every hour for the first 4 or 5 hours of the night. We're slowly working out what effects different foods have and when are good times of day to eat.

Another challenge is coming up with ideas for what to give him. Breakfast is pretty easy as there's a wide choice of cereals and yoghurts out there. Then we began introducing things like fruit and toast with fruit puree at lunch time. Dinner is taking a lot more thought. I'm not a fan of giving him dinners from a jar and he certainly prefers 'real' food over purees. I've been trying to work out which of our 'grown up' meals he can share with us. Yesterday he had some stew (made with extra low salt stock cubes) and today he had some of our spinach and bacon pasta (minus the bacon and tomatoes so really it was just pasta, creme fraiche and spinach). He absolutely loved both of these and cried when he'd eaten it all which I take as a huge compliment to my cooking!

We've been using a mixture of purees and 'baby led' weaning and found the boy really loves feeding himself, trying new things and getting to share what the grown ups eat. It's great to see him loving food and growing in his confidence and ability to feed himself. He's so confident with food he now assumes it's all for him. We went out for milkshakes with a friend the other week and when a huge milkshake was put on the table in front of him check out his reaction...

Without skipping a beat he just leaned forward and grabbed the handle and began reaching for the straw. He was most upset when he was told it wasn't for him.

So, my only question is this - now we've taught him to eat 'grown up' food, how do we teach him not to steal food from people?!

Josiah's Diary - 7th April

The other day my friend Oskar came round to play. Do you know what he did? He sat in my chair! If there's one thing my daddy taught me it's never let anyone sit in your chair. I tried to politely drop hints to move by tapping him on the foot but he wasn't getting the message. Next he started playing with all my toys! I tried to take them back from him but mummy told me not to. She said that I'm supposed to let him play with my toys - it's called sharing. I really don't understand this sharing thing yet. The other day when I tried to take one of Oskar's toys from him mummy told me not to. And when I tried to take some pizza off some kid's plate at church the other week mummy said no as well. So it would seem that sharing means everyone is allowed to have all my stuff but I'm not allowed to take anything from anyone else. That doesn't seem right - I must be missing something.

Yesterday morning me and Daddy went to 'Who let the Dad's out?' It was nice to have a boys morning out and play with friends. The food there is always good too. I was hoping someone would share their bacon butty with me but they never did. Instead daddy gave me these new things called rice cakes. They are amazing - easy to hold, yummy to taste and good to chew on.

In the afternoon daddy had to go to work so it was time for me and mummy to hang out. We went for a walk by the sea and looked at the boats and the seagulls and everyone playing in the sun. Walking home through town we saw some people dancing in the street. Mummy decided to stop and watch but the music was SO LOUD! I really didn't like it so I cried very loudly and mummy soon got the message.

When we got home it was nearly time for dinner. I got a bit bored waiting so mummy came up with a fun way to entertain myself. Here's what I did...

Usually I just have milk for dinner but this time mummy let me have some of her homemade stew for dinner. It was so nice to have real homecooked food instead of some of that pureed stuff from a jar. My only complaint was the portion size - more food mummy!

Josiah's Diary - March 17th

Ugh, my gums hurt. Mummy says I'm teething which means I will get teeth soon. I think getting teeth is supposed to be exciting but I'm not too excited right now - I just want the pain to go away. My cheeks are hot and red, my gums hurt and I've got a sore rash on my chin from all the dribbling I've been doing recently. The pain is making me grumpy and some days it's hard to concentrate on playing cos all I want to do is poke my gums and chew on stuff to try to find a way to ease my discomfort.

Mummy's been looking on the internet to find ideas for things to help with the pain so she keeps handing me all kinds of weird things to chew on. The other day she suggested we try some stuff called teething gel.  When she showed me the tube I had a good old chew on it but apparently that's not how it's supposed to work. Next thing I know mummy had her fingers in my mouth poking my gums and putting some horrible tasting stuff in my mouth. My mouth felt weird, I was swallowing all this funny stuff and I just really didn't like it. I cried and cried and cried so we haven't tried that stuff again since.

Another time mummy gave me a frozen wash cloth to chew on while I tried to fall asleep. It did help a bit but when I woke up it was all unfrozen and my bed and sleeping bag were wet so that wasn't so good.

Chewing on people's fingers is really good and it's fun putting lots of different people's hands in my mouth to find ones with just the right size fingers - but daddy said I'm not supposed to try to eat people I don't know.

Once mummy gave me an old wooden spoon to chew on and that was quite good. I've also found a rattle with chunky plastic squares that seems to help. I think my favourite so far though is chewing on the edge of tables. It's great when I find a table just right to get my whole mouth round the edge and have a good chew - ah relief!

Josiah's Diary - March 12th 2013

Guess what? I now have my very own bedroom! That means no more being woken up by mummy and daddy coming to bed and no more listening to daddy snoring while I have my night time milk. My room is a bit darker than mummy and daddy's room but it's ok cos mummy lets me have a night light on. I let teddy share my room with me so I don't get lonely and so I have a friend to play with when I wake up in the morning. Daddy says that when Uncle Dan comes to visit in a couple of weeks he's not gonna be happy with me cos I've stolen his bedroom. Never mind, I'm sure if I flash him a super cute smile he will soon forgive me.

My daddy is pretty awesome and can do lots of cool stuff. We have lots of fun play fighting together. Today he did this magic bird thing with his hands that I just couldn't work out how he was doing it. Mummy got it on video...

See - my daddy is pretty amazing eh?!

Josiah's diary - March 10th 2013

What a busy few weeks I've had - so much to see and do and learn.

A couple of weeks ago I learnt how to sit up all by myself without mummy and daddy helping. It's so much easier to play with things and reach stuff I want now. And if I lean forward far enough I can touch my toes and even put them in my mouth - amazing!

The last few weeks mummy and daddy have let me try quite a lot of food. It's so much fun trying new things and I like that they let me hold it myself cos it gives me chance to practise my grip.  My favourites so far are pineapple, strawberries, banana, bread and grapes (though mummy won't let me hold those myself yet). I also really like sharing mummy's yoghurt but she thinks the one I ate the other day might be the reason I projectile vomited in such spectacular fashion in the back of the car.

We've started having breakfast together as a family every day now. Mummy and daddy have their porridge and I have mine and we all curl up in bed together and eat and have snuggles after. Mummy keeps trying to feed the porridge to me and I keep trying to tell her to just give me the spoon. I'm a big boy now, I'm sure I can manage a spoon by myself!  This morning at breakfast mummy handed me a spoon and I thought 'finally, she got the message' and began excitedly waving it around. But my spoon didn't have any food on it and mummy had a spoon in her hand that did have food on it. Well, as soon as I realised she had the one with the food I dropped my spoon and grabbed the one in her hand - mmmm, yummy.

Last week I went on holiday with mummy, daddy, grandma and grandad. We did so much in just a few days - it was pretty intense!

One day we went to the zoo and I got to see monkeys and zebras and a giraffe and llamas and .... so many animals. I got to touch some of them too. Sheep are really nice and soft but I didn't like when they licked me. There was also a great play park at the zoo. Daddy really loved playing on the slides and sometimes he even let me play on them with him. Slides are lots of fun. I think my favourite was the ball pool - being surrounded by all these colourful things that are great to chew on.

Another day we all went out for lunch with Auntie Laura and Uncle David. I was supposed to be taking a nap while they all ate but I didn't want to miss the chance to try everyone's food.  I had some really nice bread and tried this stuff called cucumber too. It's easy to hold so that is good but it doesn't really taste of much so I didn't bother eating it.

By the end of the week I was pretty exhausted and grumpy. In fact if I'm honest I've had a pretty cranky few days since we got home. People don't seem to realise how tiring it is learning all this new stuff - it's a lot of hard work! Mummy has this annoying habit of waking me up if she thinks I'm sleeping too much in the day which didn't help either. Plus I slept badly in the car on the way home from holiday too. Thankfully mummy cut me some slack yesterday and let me catch up on some sleep so now I feel well rested and ready to go learn some more things. Bring on play group tomorrow!!!

They learn so fast!

It amazes me how much kids learn in their early years. I thought I'd share with you some of the cute/fun things Josiah has been learning.

He gives great hugs now and sometimes when you go to kiss him he puts his hands either side of your face. I like to think it's to pull me in for a good smooch but I know it's probably more to do with his love of touching people's faces. He loves to stroke his daddy's beard and pull my hair and grab noses. (We've been teaching him that noses make a honking sound - tee hee!)

He's developed massive curiosity about the world around him and is very alert. This makes feeding him a challenge as now he plays with my clothes, pulls away to chat or tries to hang upside down to look at/reach things behind him. It seems like only a few weeks ago that Josiah was reliant on us to hand him things to look at and he could barely hold them. Now he can reach out and grab whatever interests him, hold it with both hands and even pass items from one hand to another. He's still at the stage where his main method of examining things is to put them in his mouth. In the last 24 hours the following items have ended up in Josiah's mouth:  a windmill, a plastic flower, several empty food wrappers, the baby monitor, my phone, a cereal bowl, my nectar card and some junk mail from a credit card company. Josh made the mistake of trying to text with Josiah on his lap the other day. Without hesitation these two little hands firmly gripped either side of the phone and put it straight in his mouth.

All I can say is heaven help us when he learns to crawl - nothing will be safe from being eaten!

Josiah's Diary - February 10th

One of my favourite things to do is put stuff in my mouth. I love chewing, sucking, licking. I'll put anything in my mouth - toys, my teddy, my blanket and sometimes mummy even lets me put some of her food in my mouth.  My favourite thing is to suck my thumb but daddy keeps trying to stop me.

Now I have come up with a way to fool him. I put my sleeve or a muslin over my hand and then suck my thumb. That way daddy doesn't know which finger I'm sucking. I may only be five months old but already I can out smart my parents!

Josiah's Diary - February 9th

Yesterday was the best day ever!

I went to bed as usual and then a while later mummy came into my room, turned the light on and got me out of bed. She never turns the light on at night time - not even when I have my nappy changed. I was so confused as she took me downstairs and put me in the car seat. Just then daddy came through the front door (I didn't even know he'd left the house) and picked me up and we all got in someone's car. It was super dark outside and lights flashed past as we drove. I sat and stared at mummy and daddy most of the journey waiting for them to give me any clues where we were going.

Finally we arrived and walked into a nice warm house full of plenty of grown ups to give me attention. It was Lizzie's birthday party but when I arrived I was the centre of attention. The best thing was that some of my new friends from our holiday with the student group were there. It was good to see them again and play together. Tom pulls the funniest faces and made me laugh lots.

I got plenty of cuddles with the birthday girl and she showed me round her house and let me sit on her lap and everything.

There was lots of party food and mummy let me try some of her strawberries. They tasted good but were annoyingly slippery!

I met a real life dog. She was much bigger than my cuddly doggy at home. All the grown ups kept touching her so I thought I'd give it a go. She felt soft and furry and had a wet nose. Suddenly she licked my face. The grown ups told her off for doing that but I didn't really mind - it was just a little unexpected.

I had lots of fun but eventually I got tired and wanted to go home so I yelled at mummy and daddy to make my wishes known.  I must have fallen asleep pretty much as soon as we got in the car as the next thing I remember was waking up at home as mummy lifted me out of the car seat. When she picked me up I thought to myself  "more playtime? Amazing! This is the best day ever".  But it wasn't playtime, it was bed time - time to sleep and dream of my exciting evening.

The Adventure Begins

For weeks and weeks now Josiah has been showing a lot of interest in food. He sits and watches intently as we eat, his eyes following every mouthful from plate to mouth (it's kinda off putting!).  Sometimes if he's sat on my lap while I eat he starts leaning towards my food. This week that leaning developed into little hands reaching out to grab. The first thing he tried to grab was my carrot cake at play group so there was no way I was sharing that - partly because it's not good for him but mostly because I don't share cake!

I had always imagined that weaning would involve a lot of purees but now the time has come it seems to make more sense to give Josiah real food. Think about it - his reason for reaching for food isn't hunger, it's curiosity. As a friend told me recently "food before one is just for fun". So what if he doesn't swallow any of it. He's still getting all he needs from breast milk so there's no need to try to cram puree down his throat. It's just about letting him have fun exploring textures and tastes and taking time to develop the skills he needs to feed himself. If you are interested to know more about this baby led weaning style check out this link  - I found it really helpful.

This weekend we went away with the student group from church and as Josiah sat on my lap during a coffee and cake break he started reaching for my food again. So I decided to swap my cake for an apple and see if he still wanted to share. I cut the apple into some wedges and began to eat. Sure enough a chubby little hand reached out to grab a bit. So I handed him a wedge and watched to see what would happen. He gripped it tightly and happily sucked on it. But then I got scared he was gonna put the whole thing in his mouth and choke so I took it away from him.

Then he cried.

I gave him another chunkier wedge and he went back to sucking. Then, to my surprise, he began chomping on it. There were definate gum indentations on it by the time he was done!

Another time he tried banana. He found it harder to grip the chunk I gave him as it wasn't 'chip shaped'. He can't eat food inside his fist yet so he came up with his own method for eating banana - squidge it in your hand and suck it off your fingers......yummy.

So the result of our food experimenting so far is as follows:
Food swallowed = zero
Lessons learned = plenty! Gripping food, putting food in mouth, chewing, squishing, trying new flavours and textures. 

I still have plenty of questions about how to do this whole weaning thing and what he is and isn't allowed but looking forward to helping Josiah on his food adventure. I would love to hear from other parents about their experience of baby led weaning - any tips would be greatly appreciated.

We are all women of valour

Today I read this great article about celebrating what we do as women instead of beating ourselves up over not being superwoman. Have a read and I hope you will be encouraged woman of valour:

Why You Don't Need Pinterest to be a Proverbs 31 Woman

Okay, I’ll admit it.  I never loved the Proverbs 31 Woman.

Actually, that may be an understatement. Truth be told, I secretly hated her.

The subject of a twenty-two line acrostic poem found in the last chapter of the book of Proverbs, the “wife of noble character” is cited at nearly every Christian women’s conference as the ideal to which all godly women must strive. The bad news for the domestically-challenged among us is that the life of the Proverbs 31 woman is like a Pinterest board come to life: She rises before dawn each day, provides exotic food for her children, runs a profitable textile business, invests in real estate, cares for the poor, spends hours at the loom making clothes and coverings for her bed, and crafts holiday wreaths out of coffee filters. (Okay, so that last one was straight from Pinterest, but you get the idea.)

Growing up in the Church, I sat through many a sermon explaining how domestic exploits like these represented the essence of true womanhood, and over time, I began to see myself as less-than, falling short of God’s ideal each time I turned to Sara Lee for dessert or called my mom to help me hem my own slacks.

So when I decided to commit one year of my life to studying (and at times, practicing) everything the Bible says about women as part of my “Year of Biblical Womanhood,” I knew I’d have to come face-to-face with the Proverbs 31 Woman in a way I hadn’t before.

I started by attempting to turn the poem into a to-do list, which resulted in a 16-item list that included everything from lifting weights each morning (“she girds herself with strength and makes her arms strong”), to making a purple dress to wear (“she makes coverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple”), to knitting scarves for my husband (“when it snows, she has no fear for her household, for all of them are clothed in scarlet”), to making a homemade sign and literally praising my husband at the city gate (“her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land”).

I had a bit of fun with that last one, but the rest proved exhausting. Within a few weeks, I’d started and unraveled at least two scarves, broken the old second-hand sewing machine I’d dug out of my closet, cursed at the picture of Martha Stewart smiling glibly from the cover of my cookbook, and embarrassed myself at Hobby Lobby by crying in the fabric aisle.

Finally, I consulted Ahava, an Orthodox Jewish woman I had befriended during the project.

“So do Jewish women struggle with this passage as much as Christian women?” I asked.

Ahava seemed a bit bewildered.

“Not at all!” she said. “In my culture, Proverbs 31 is a blessing.”

Ahava repeated a finding I’d discovered in my research, that the first line of the Proverbs 31 poem—“a virtuous woman who can find?”—is best translated, “a woman of valor who can find?” In fact, the structure and diction employed in the poem closely resembles that of a heroic poem celebrating the exploits of a warrior.

“I get called an eshet chayil (woman of valor) all the time,” Ahava explained. “Make your own challah instead of buying? Eshet chayil! Work to earn some extra money for the family? Eshet chayil! Get promoted at your work?  Eshet chayil! Make balloon animals for the kids at a party? Eshet chayil! Every week at the Sabbath table, my husband sings the Proverbs 31 poem to me. It’s special because I know that no matter what I do or don’t do, he praises me for blessing the family with my energy and creativity. All women can do that in their own way. I bet you do as well.”

I looked into this, and sure enough, in Jewish culture it is not the women who memorize Proverbs 31, but the men. Husband commit each line of the poem to memory, so they can recite it to their wives at the Sabbath meal, usually in a song. (The astute reader will notice that the only actual instruction found in the entire poem is that a husband celebrate his wife for “all her hands have done.”) The praise is meant to be unconditional.

But the blessing goes beyond the family. Ahava explained that her Jewish friends cheer one another on with the blessing, celebrating everything from promotions, to pregnancies, to acts of mercy and justice, to battles with cancer with a hearty “eshet chayil!”—woman of valor.

The biblical heroine Ruth is called an “eshet chayil,” in fact. And she is called that at a time when her life looked nothing like the life of the Proverbs 31 woman, when she was a poor, childless, widow, who, far from exchanging fine linens with the merchants, spent her days gleaning leftover grain from the fields.

“All the people of my town know that you are a woman of noble character (eshet chayil),” Boaz says to her.

I liked it.

No, I loved it.

So I set aside my to-do list and began using Proverbs 31 as it was meant to be used—not as yet another impossible standard by which to measure our failures, but as a celebration of what we’ve already accomplished as women of valor.  When my friend Tiffany’s pharmacy aced its accreditation, I congratulated her with “eshet chayil!” When my sister beat out about a million applicants for the job she wanted in North Carolina, I called her up and shouted “woman of valor!” When my mom overcame breast cancer, I made a card that said “eshet chayil” on the front.  When I learned that three women had won the Nobel Peace Prize, I shared the new with my readers in a blog post entitled, “Meet Three Women of Valor.”

As I saw how powerful and affirming this ancient blessing could be, I decided it was time for Christian women to take back Proverbs 31. Somewhere along the way, we surrendered it to the same people who invented airbrushing and Auto-Tune. We abandoned the meaning of the poem by focusing on the specifics, and it became just another impossible standard by which to measure our failures. We turned an anthem into an assignment, a poem into a job description.

But according to Ahava, the woman described in Proverbs 31 is not some ideal that exists out there; she is present in each one of us when we do even the smallest things with valor.

And that’s worth celebrating…with or without a Pinterest board.

This was written by Rachel Held Evans, a popular blogger and the author of A Year of Biblical Womanhood, which recently released.

Mmmmmmm brownies!

For Christmas Josiah got one of those bouncer thingys you hang from the doorway and he LOVES it. Unfortunately the only doorway in our house that it fits on is in the kitchen meaning I now spend much more time in the kitchen than I used to. As a result the washing up is being done a lot more regularly (probably a good thing!) and I've been doing a lot more baking.


This week I've been experimenting with chocolate brownie recipies. I've discovered a great recipe for Microwave Chocolate Brownies that's super quick and easy and thought I would share it with you all.

1. Melt 150g butter in the microwave
2. Add 200g sugar. Doesn't matter if it's caster sugar or granulated - I've done it with both and either is good.
3. Add cocoa powder. The original recipe says 65g but I found that too rich. For todays batch I tried 45g instead and that seemed much more reasonable.
4. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence.
5. Add two eggs, stirring thoroughly after each one.
6. Add 100g plain flour.
7. Pour into a microwave safe baking tin and microwave on full power for 4-5 mins depending on your microwave. Basically when it just starts to pull away from the sides of the tin it's done. Take it out and leave to cool before cutting up.

I've been experimenting to try to get the right texture on them. So far mine turn out pretty cakey but I'm aiming for chewy. I read that for chewy brownies add more flour and for fudgey brownies add an extra egg yolk. And apparently the crispy top to brownies is a result of whisking the mixture lots after adding the eggs.

I will continue to experiment to get the perfect brownie and let you know my findings. It's a tough job but I'm willing to make the sacrifice for you all.

Totally clueless!?!

Worst night's sleep ever! Ok, maybe not ever, but worst in quite a while. Josiah woke up at 11pm for no real reason and settled back to sleep again reasonably well but decided to talk to himself loudly in the process thus waking up both parents. He woke again at 12:30am wanting to eat. Then he woke again at 4:30am and wouldn't settle so I fed him again. I was so tired I fed him lying down. Apparently he was tired too and fell asleep eating. Due to his unsettled sleep I decided to let him stay asleep in our bed instead of waking him to put him in his own bed. As I rolled away from him to get comfy ready to go back to sleep he decided to sprawl out and take up my entire side of the bed! This left my husband and I just half the bed for the both of us to sleep in. He was not too impressed at having his sleep space invaded at 5am.

We were even less impressed when Josiah woke up again at 6:30am. I tried to resettle him in his own bed but he was having none of it so I caved in and fed him again. Add to all the night waking the fact that I have a stinking cold preventing me from getting to sleep and mastitis making feeding very painful and you'll see it was really not a fun night!

The thing that annoys me most is that just a few weeks ago he was going 6-8 hours between feeds at night - not every night but at least 50% of the time. Why is he now going only 4 hours between feeds?! What am I doing wrong? At first I put it down to a growth spurt but it's been a couple of weeks now.

This parenting thing is hard work and I feel so clueless. It used to be so much more straight forward - let him sleep as long as he wants, feed him as soon as he wakes, change him, put him straight back to bed - simple. Now it's so much more complicated. He wants to be awake so much more and it's a careful balance trying to give him enough sleep but not so much he doesn't sleep at night. I think I know roughly how many feeds he needs and how much sleep but can't seem to work out how to coordinate the two. This week there has been plenty of crying because we've tried to put him to sleep when he wanted to play more. And there has been crying because we've woken him up to feed him while he still really needed sleep. (Kinda his own fault for staying up chatting for 45 mins before going to sleep instead of taking the opportunity to nap). We'd previously got into a nice little routine that worked well but the kid is constantly growing and changing and so are his needs. It's so hard to keep up!

Please somebody tell me this parenting thing gets easier right?!

Favourite moments

Ok, I have a new favourite moment from this week that I wish I had photographic evidence of but alas, all I can do is describe it to you.

We just got back from Carols by Candlelight. We let Josiah stay up late so we could all enjoy it together and enjoy it he did. He loved looking at the candles and chatting to all the people. He had no qualms about grabbing the hand of the person next to him and chewing on their finger despite the fact he'd only just met them.

At one point he was sat on my knee happily bouncing up and down and excitedly chatting to me. As we chatted he giggled and grinned and delighted everyone around him. Then he began staring at my boobs, which is not all that unusual. But then he began puckering his lips, making a face just like a baby chimp, and leaning in towards my boobs. I so wish I could have taken a picture. He looked so hilarious as he mimed sucking on my boobs from about two feet away from them - we were sat crying with laughter!