March 2005 part 3 - Support for the sleep obsessed!

[bonym]

Which of course, we all are

Which of her cookbooks are these recipes from?

The brownies are from domestic goddess - the recipe appears to make enough to feed the 5000, but somehow they always get eaten! And the pumpkin cheesecake is from Feast - I really fancied doing it because we're having a halloween party in a little while and I wanted to test out doing something pumplin-themed that wasn't pumpkin pie.

Sometimes I think I should abandon my career in IT and just bake cakes!!!

OMG, now you're all at it I can just about manage to cook the tea, never mind cakes and pumpkin cheesecake - no matter how simple. Love cooking for Harrison though so clearly there is a domestic goddess in there somewhere just fighting to get out

Tomorrow's masterpieces will be the chicken and grape thing and rice pudding. Will let you know if Nigella has anything to worry about once Harrison tries it

Oh almost forgot - sleep update - Harrison is now regularly sleeping through until sometime after 5.00am from 6.30pm. If he wakes up before this time (which he often does) he chats for a bit and then goes back to sleep. That's my boy

Now trying to settle him when he wakes at 5.00am without feeding and so far (past 3 days) we have achieved 2 going back to sleeps until 6.30am and 7.15am and last night .................................................................... he didn't wake at all until 6.50am Hooorrrraaayyyyy

You're right, the brownies are gorgeous. I always seem to have to make them for birthday parties, bbqs etc. Very popular, though probably about a million calories each! As for needing an excuse to make the malteser cake, what excuse do you really need (except for the fact that you like eating cakes!)?

Hooray for Harrison's sleeping!
About a week ago I made a decision to stop feeding Freya at night. I figured that she is on 3 meals a day, and I was sure that she was just messing about a night. She got pretty angry the first night, and yelled for about 10 minutes, but since then she seems to have got the message and has been sleeping through really well. Also, on the night she did wake up I sent DH into her room to settle her, cos I thought that if she could smell me and milk then she would be less likely to settle without being fed.
She is now having 3 bf a day, morning, mid afternoon and bedtime. She also has 3 meals a day.

BW - Good luck with the chicken and grapes recipe. It has proved popular with all those that have tried it so far!

I am trying cod and sweet potato mush out on Freya tomorrow. It was one of DS1's favourites, but I am fast learning that this does not necessarily mean Freya will like it. I will let you know how it goes.

Hmm - used to be a domestic goddess but it seems to have gone a bit awry recently (wonder why? ). Love cooking, but don't seem to have time to do non-essential stuff like cakes. Although on second thoughts, I guess cakes are pretty essential! .

Well done Harrison on the sleeping! We are almost there. Grace is now going from 6.30pm to about 4-ish and then will usually settle again (with a bit of a cuddle) until about 5, when she has a feed and then goes back to sleep until about 8am! Last night (this morning) she didn't feed for very long at 5am so I am hoping we will be able to cut this soon. She does occasionally wake at other times but usually settle herself pretty quickly - unfortunately though it's grumbling and grizzling rather than chatting.

She sits up really well now although we do still have the occasional topple. Oh, and she's just learnt to say "ba" - kept practising it over and over again this evening and looked so pleased with herself, it was the sweetest thing!

Hooray for Bonym not being a domestic goddess either. Was beginning to feel quite left out

Aren't all our babies doing so well. Sitting up, some crawling, 'ba' (oh how gorgeous) and best of all ....... sleeping. I almost don't know what to do with myself in the day when Harrison naps now as I don't (always) feel the need to nap myself. Best get the cook books out so I can post messages about gastronomical delights I've rustled up

All these very fattening - but nice - goodies, that I can well do without; besides the fact I still don't have a kitchen. Have decided I really must do something more serious about losing some more weight. You lot are ok now as you're in Winter. I've got to face up to 6 months of hot weather and bearing all at the pool and on the beach! Saw a pic DH had taken of me and Lauren the other day. My face looks like a hamster! Can't stand it. I put on 24 kg with Lauren and still need to get rid of 10. Bought a pair of trousers the other day without trying them on - thinking they looked more than huge enough - and can hardly do them up!! Very depressing. I'm certainly not going to fall pregnant again until my body is in top condition. Can't understand why I put on so much weight. I was a sick as a dog for two months and hardly ate a thing, and after that I didn't exactly pig out. I was almost getting bigger on a daily basis and what with hectic water retention, I looked like a ball at the end. The water was so bad I ended up wearing a pair of my dad's size 10 shoes before and after the birth - I'm normally a size 6!

busywizzy - what a superstar Harrison is with his sleeping.

I am definitely only into cake baking because it means I can SCOFF to my heart's content! Just polished off some more pumpkin cheesecake. What can you do when there are leftovers that are begging to be eaten?

Went for another run tonight - so far am managing to stick to my twice weekly half hour outing. Hoping it might help me lose the final bit of pregnancy wobble, which seems to be entirely on my stomach. Though I fear I may have to resort to sit-ups, which I can never bring myself to do. And maybe I'll have to cut back on my baking exploits!

jambot - I think most pregnancy weight gain is down to your genes - some people are just made to get plumper, and others are lucky and only seem to gain a bump.

Am not going to comment on Iris and her sleeping for fear of doing my usual jinxing

busywizzy - what a superstar Harrison is with his sleeping.

I am definitely only into cake baking because it means I can SCOFF to my heart's content! Just polished off some more pumpkin cheesecake. What can you do when there are leftovers that are begging to be eaten?

Went for another run tonight - so far am managing to stick to my twice weekly half hour outing. Hoping it might help me lose the final bit of pregnancy wobble, which seems to be entirely on my stomach. Though I fear I may have to resort to sit-ups, which I can never bring myself to do. And maybe I'll have to cut back on my baking exploits!

jambot - I think most pregnancy weight gain is down to your genes - some people are just made to get plumper, and others are lucky and only seem to gain a bump.

Am not going to comment on Iris and her sleeping for fear of doing my usual jinxing

I agree, Pidge is great! I don't know where you get the time or energy from! I would love to do more, although I have started cooking more again.

Niklas is also waking up and inconsolable in the night. I'm feeding him, but also sure he's not hungry. I know I didn't feed him last night, ore was it the night before... but its all a blur what i did. I think they have dreams, sometimes nightmares.

Norash - Niklas is the same, sometimes if I am tired I will lay on the floor next to him and half sleep while he plays and he will be happy as anything, but his favourite game seems to be climbing all over me and biting, licking, hitting, scratching, tickling my face, poking his fingers in my eyes, up my nose etc...! He gets mad if I am too far away and tries to climb up my legs. Little love... sigh !

Hmm, as I read further through this it seems that Niklas, who used to be one of the better sleepers is now starting to be one of the worst !

Pidge, well done for keeping up the running. I've managed to go once in 2 weeks (but we were all sick), but did 40 mins on sunday and felt great afterwards. Evening runs are a bit difficult now as there are hardly any lit streets in our village, shame as I love to run in the evening, but I'm waiting for a key for the shower room at work and will work hard at running on my days off with the pushchair. its really beautiful where we live, a bit hilly though which will be tough with the push chair in the beginning.

reading back what I have written makes no sense at alll..... bluuurgh, its my Monday morning! All the talk about cakes and food has made me hungry, I'm off to the bakery!

Hi everyone,

I just cannot seem to find time for mumsnet anymore .

Leogaela, it just got worse he will ignore you while you are in the room and play with his toys and make a "crawl" (run) for the wires. As soon as he turns back and your not there, he screems as if someone's dropped him.

I do hope that everyone else is well and that the little ones are doing well.

Better go pick Kieran up from the Minder, he seems to be thriving there.

be happy all.

Norash - great to hear that Kieran's getting on great with the childminder.

Leogaela - my next running target is to go for 40 minutes, I currently do 30 on my runs. I really want to set myself a goal like a 10k or half marathon, but that would mean fitting in a longer run at the weekend, and I just can't see at the moment when that would happen, as I don't want to take time away from being with dp and the kids during the day, but equally our weekend evenings are usually pretty socially packed with friends coming over. Hmmmmmm ... something to mull over.

As a further advert for baking - the half an hour it took to bake the cheesecake last Saturday has been enough to leave us with leftovers tonight, and still some more to scoff tomorrow. What a return on investment!

At the risk of making you all think I'm some kind of homecraft nut - I have just been trying to convert a black top I bought in a local charity shop into a witch's cape for dd1 for her halloween party next week. This has been a comedy classic as I can't sew for toffee and have spent the evening alternately stabbing my finger and cursing loudly, with dp saying "Aren't cloaks about £2 in Woolies?"

Iris has been super pleased with her lot today - she can now get herself from sitting into a brilliant 'pre-crawling' position, from which she paws the ground like an impatient horse, but goes absolutely nowhere!

LOL Norash - Niklas is also obsessed with wires and makes a dash for them everytime my back is turned. Actually he likes to get his hands on anything except all the lovely toys he has! At the moment though you can see his eyes scanning every place he goes to to find something to pull himself up onto. He is quite stable now and doesn't seem to fall over (quite so often ), but still can't manage to sit himself down again when he gets tired. He is so obsessed with standing that he dreams about it - he was crying last night and I found him still fast asleep standing in his cot! So a better night, apart from the dream episode he woke around 3.30 and was definitely hungry!
Great to hear that Kieran is doing well at teh childminders. Niklas is also doing really well at the nursery. I can see he is learning from the other children.

Pidge - I know what you mean about the running. Nothing would stop me going out before, but now I don't want to miss out on anything at home! I guess I am a bit all or nothing about these things but having a goal is good, I will find a race to train for as well I think.

Oh for the days when I ran 10kms twice a week with a local running club! Don't think I could do round the block at the moment. Very poor.
I must, I must.... stop using my child as an excuse for everything I no longer do!!!! Think I could get away with it when she was a month or two old, but at nearly 7 and a half months, that excuse is a bit stale..
Am starting on the Holford GL Diet tomorrow. My gym trainer swears by his ideas about weight loss, so will be giving it a go.
Lauren slept at my folks last night. Now that the warm weather is here, we have been invaded by fleas. So we fumigated yesterday and I didn't want her sleeping in a room with remnants of poisonous air - great excuse to have peaceful night. Woke up with the birds at 5:30, so so much for a lie-in. The one thing I hate about Summer. The birds start going mad so damn early!
My kitchen is being delivered tomorrow. Will probably still be two weeks before it is up and running but I am so excited about having a stove and a kitchen sink! Will be cooking up a storm along with Pidge and co. Going to have to give you some nice South African recipes to try.

Lauren is obsessed with keys and spoons. Forget her lovely toys!

Jambot - don't complain, its bloody freezing here already!!!
I can't believe you have managed for so long without a kitchen! Oooh, S.african recipes would be interesting.

Why do we bother with toys for our babies???? just give them an old bunch of keys, an empty toilet roll, a blown up rustly plastic bag and an old mobile phone or remote control and they would be as happy as anything!!!!

At least you get to experience snow. Such fun for kids. But I suppose ours can spend summers on the beach. Not like when I was a kid though - running around in bikini bottoms without a smear of suntan lotion on my body. Parents weren't worried about skin cancer in those days. I was as brown as a berry. Although that's probably why I'm getting wrinkles already! Now it's Factor 40 from head to toe, hats and special UV cossies. Not quite the same as running around near naked! Same as car restraints. I was shunted around in my carry cot on the back seat as a baby. Not a car seat in sight. Don't think there was even such a thing then! Was so easy to take your child out at night. You didn't have to wake them up jamming them into their seat in the middle of the night.
Am still amazed by how many people in South Africa drive around with their children unrestrained. It's one of my pet hates. And it's normally people driving flashy cars, who really have no excuse. When you see what happens to babies and children in those crash dummy videos, don't know how anyone can put their child in the car unrestrained.

The one benefit of not having a stove is that I've become a star with the microwave. I've got a microwave steamer that does veggies and fish and chicken perfectly in 4 minutes. The only thing that wasn't a success was doing pears in it. They went all brown and horrible, so I do them at my mum's place.

Hi everyone - good to hear than Kieran and Niklas are settling well with their respective carers. It does make working a lot easier when you know that your babies are happy.

Well - don't want to jinx anything (but I'm not as superstitious as Pidge ) - but Grace slept from 6.30pm to 6.05am - had a feed and then woke up at 8.20am! . Hope it's not a one off - however she has been getting gradually better each night so hopefully it will continue.

She is becoming increasingly vocal - added "mama" to her "ba" yesterday. I know it's only random but I was so thrilled !

I cooked the chicken and grapes recipe for her yesterday that you've all been raving about. Heated some up for her tea, gave her one mouthful and then she grabbed the bowl, flinging the whole lot on the floor! I was a bit mortified, but heated some more up and she was seriously un-impressed . Thought she might not have been that hungry but offered her some fruit and she wolfed that down.

I am finding it difficult to get protein down her - did try in our local health food shop for the quinoa flakes Pidge recommended. They should have had some in last Friday so I need to try to get back down there. Was rather funny actually - I went in armed with the correct pronounciation (courtesy of Pidge) and the woman said - "Oh, you mean Kwin-oh- a", so I just agreed with her!

Have to say I am seriously impressed with you runners - the only exercise I get is pushing the pram around the village and walking back and forward to the school every day. Better than nothing though - and I do walk pretty fast!

Jambot - bet you'll be glad when your kitchen is finished. We had ours done a couple of years ago and I found it a real pain having to manage without an oven.

Have a good day everyone.

Right ladies, get your thinking caps on as I need some ideas. Am going to a surprise birthday party at the weekend, my best friend's DH. The reason for the party is that he has been battling cancer for the past few years and has recently been told it's spread and there is nothing more that can be done. So effectively, he probably won't be with us by his next birthday What can I buy him as a birthday present ? Have absolutely no ideas whatsoever so need your help.

LOL at Grace throwing the chicken and grape thing on the floor. I'm cooking it this morning for Harrison so hopefully, he'll be slightly more impressed Felt inspired to be a domestic goddess yesterday and made a chicken thing for dinner from Nigella's website. DH said 'it tasted OK but looked like sick' and DD wouldn't even try it and asked for pizza instead so don't think I'll be making that again

Think we have more teeth on the move as having had a week of fantastic sleeping, he woke last night at 8.00, 9.00, 3.00 and 4.00. Then took me until 5.15 to get him back to sleep, so feeling pretty tired today. He also has a bit of nappy rash which he got last time and which DD always got when teething. He's just woken from a mammoth nap when I should have been catching up on some shut-eye as well but decided to watch Sunday's epiosde of Nip and Tuck. It was rubbish and I wish I hadn't bothered

Have a good day everyone.

Jambot - when we were kids me and my 5 siblings all piled in the back of a normal sized car. only posh people had car seats. We did have an accident once and my little bro has the scars to show for it. its compulsory here to have car seats now, but I was really mad the other day when I saw a man on a bike cruising down a busy street with toddler on the back wearing no helmet!

Bonym, Niklas won't eat chicken either, sensible children in my opinion - I have been a bit quiet about the chicken and grape thing as I don't eat chicken - they are the most disgusting creatures ever! Yueek! Niklas loves cheese though so he gets that quite often, has had fish and calf once and will have lamb tonight.
I am impressed and very that your babies are all saying intersting things. Niklas still hasn't said anything except aah and urgu.

Bizzywizzy - about your friend. the present has to be something like theatre tickets I guess or vouchers to nice restaurant. or if you are spending more money a weekend away or train tickets/flights to go somewhere nice.

The chicken and grape thing was a success Mixed it with a large dollop (technical term) of creme fraiche rather than baby rice and Harrison wolfed it down.

Watch out Delia, here I come

Leo - Harrison has been saying mmmmuuummmm since he was a few months old so I don't think he realises that's my 'name' yet. Other than that, we have similar noises to Niklaus. Thanks for the advise about a pressie. I like the idea of theatre tickets so might go with that one.

boneym - I thought the chicken and grape thing was a pretty full on meat experience when I made it, so I mixed one cube chicken thing with two cubes squash (or was it carrot, something sweet anyway). I do the same with things like lentil puree that might be a bit much on their own.

jambot - alas in London we don't even often get snow - just slush! Not that I'm complaining, I actually rather like our autumns and winters. Would love to have some S.A. recipes. I have memories of this thing my mum used to make called 'baboite' (spelling!?), which she claimed was South African. It was delicious.

busywizzy - I'm bad enough at present ideas at the best of times, let alone in such terribly sad circumstances. Is he still able to eat and drink and enjoy something like that? Also Leogaela's idea of providing a weekend away is a good one. A good friend of ours was diagnosed with terminal cancer a few years ago and he and his wife had one last trip away - just to a local hotel, but I know it was a special thing to do, even if loaded with sadness.

Iris shows no sign of saying anything of interest other than "dadadadadadadada", though she looks incredibly pleased with herself every time she comes out with it.

Babotie. Yes it's very South African. Sounds awful but quite delicious. It's basically a sweet, curried mince covered with an savoury egg custard. Would probably make a great baby food, without the curry paste. It's not really hot - more sweet. Or how about Koeksisters. Basically sweet dough deep fried then wound into a sort of plait and dipped in syrup. Fantastic if you are after a hectic sugar fix but you feel sick after a few. Or biltong. (sure you must have heard of it) It's dried, salted raw strips of beef or ostrich or buck. My husband is crazy about the stuff and I buy it in big packets. Great snack and low in calories. You have to have a ton of it when watching the Springboks playing a rugby test match. No game is complete without lots of beer and biltong! Very sophisticated our South African men!