April 2009 - Chapter 5 - The one where no-one is allowed to feel guilty (except about all the chocolate...)

[Guimauve]

There will be chocolate fines for the guilty!

Thanks so much let me know how much the postage is x x

Don't worry about the postage, will only be a couple of quid I'm sure. Buy me an ice cream if we ever meet up! (Or a glass of wine....)

I have that NCT weaning book too, it's good but then making up purees is really easy and fun. Sweet potato and pear was a good one, or apple and raisin.

For a bit later, I'd get the Annabel Karmel book. DD1 has never rejected anything I've cooked from that book, it's lovely toddler food and DH and I like it too!

Is it the NCT First Foods and Weaning one Feier? It is good, isn't it? I like the way the NCT don't make it complicated, it's just a nice little handbook with no fuss about it.

Ahem, Boff, you do realise that having referred to your special semolina pudding and rice pudding recipes, you are now going to have to divulge them, don't you? Or are they top secret, handed down over generations of Boffins?

They don't seem to do baby rice here, only cereal to put in baby bottles. Think I'll skip on to the purée phase when the time comes.

Sarah, if there was anything really worth going out for, I would stuff it and go. It's a sad reflection on my social life that thus far there hasn't been any event worth my making a stand. (Can never decide whether to call you Ginger or Sarah, now I know you are neither gingery nor called Sarah!)

Guimauve, I like your reasoning. I have eaten a packet of wickedly rich chocolate biscuits and am convincing myself they are healthy because they are organic. Can I have your brownie recipe? Cranberries sound great!

We have just received an e-mail from the university President saying that if the swine flu pandemic kicks in, the campus will close and we will all work via computers. After last semester's strike, now swine flu...

Yup , that one. With an ugly child on the cover

Thanks WFH - glass of wine (or two, or three) it is

Yes Boff... looking forward to the semolina and rice pudding recipes

DH is currently biting my shoulder to get attention so think I'd better go...

G'night all

Gui, sorry I wasn't suggesting you should give him a bottle when he was hungry - I was just querying (rather clumsily) whether he had ever actually taken a bottle. Which formula are you giving him?

I also got asked if I had started weaning Hannah yet today by HV. I was a bit because I thought the advice was to continue with milk only till 6 months (she's only 20 weeks and her weight was plotted as 19 even more ). I was told I must think about it if she starts waking in the night. The joke is for the first time since giving birth I currently feel that she is feeding WELL!!!!

I also haven't been 54kg since the age of 12 but then I am 5'10 so am unlikely to ever see that figure again.

Have just converted 54kg into stone and am . I haven't weighed that since 1996, or thereabouts!

Well I was 12 in 1989!!!!!!!

Brownie recipe is Nigella's from Domestic Goddess, scaled down for the tin I use, which is approx 8" x 8" x 2"

Grease tin and line base. Pre-heat oven - I use 160C fan oven, so probably 170-180C non-fan depending on your oven.
In a saucepan melt 250g unsalted butter with 250g chocolate. Mix well and allow to cool a little. I usually use dark choc, but this time bought G&B caramel (milk choc), thinking it was caramel-flavoured, but was actually caramel-filled! Seems to have worked anyway though.
While choc is melting/ cooling, beat 4 eggs (UK large) with 325g caster sugar and 10mLs vanilla extract.
Weigh out 150g plain flour and add a pinch* of salt.
Mix chocolate/ butter into the eggs and then mix in the flour.
Add goodies of your choice. Think original recipe uses nuts, probably walnuts. I usually do approx 100g hazelnuts, as they are my favourite, and about the same of dried cranberries or dried cherries. Also used to make them frequently with chunks of dried apricot.
Pour mixture into tin. I bake for 30 mins and check then. I cook them until they are just set (i.e. they no longer wobble when I jiggle the pan), but I like them really squodgy, and a skewer is still pretty sticky at this stage. I usually remove them after 40-45 mins. Go longer if you prefer a dryer brownie! Top should be light brown and speckly.

Or 'Celebration Brownies' (from G&B cookbook I think):
Make plain mixture and pour half into tin. Arrange 16 Celebrations in a 4 x 4 grid on top of the mixture, and pour over remaining mixture. Then when you slice up the cooked brownie, each one has a different centre! Not sure if you get Celebrations over your way, Auld!

Hope I didn't mislead you into thinking they had fresh cranberries in them! Although they would probably work, a bit like fresh blueberries in muffins.

Well, I can safely say I hadn't weighed 54kg for many a long year and was when I got on the scales yesterday. I'm not sure it's really desirable, TBH, though I realise that may be an annoying thing to say if you are struggling to lose the PG weight.
DH says I have huge BF knockers and all the rest of me is scrawny.

bicnod bronze you are both heathens its scone, butter, jam and cream in that order!

IShouldKnowI'mCornishTiggaxx

Hey Brett, no worries. He has taken a bottle, but ebm, and a good few weeks ago. We've got SMA at the moment.

It sounds like many HVs are going with the 17-26 weeks thing, without giving any clear advice on how to make the decision. Is it just me, or is it not relatively normal for our babies to wake in the night at their age? They only have tiny tums! I mean I wake up starving after 12 hours without food, how can I expect him to go that long?! In fact, when feeding in the middle of the night, I've often pondered getting up to get something to eat as I feel so hungry!

Hurrah Tigga! I must be Cornish at heart!

Oh and it's pronounce scon

My little man was so VERY brave today. His left leg is swollen and he's only been a little bit grumpy.

Don'tAskHowMommaWasTiggaxx

Though the closest I've got to Cornwall is Plymouth.

I was with Bicnod and Bronze but I have just asked DH (Cornish too) and he was appalled.
He seconds Tigga.

Whereabouts Tigs? DH is from Helston.

Guimauve I agree with you - waking in the night is what babies do, IMO. Some more than others, but I don't think it's always linked to hunger. Particularly as teeth and new developmental stages and all sorts of things can interfere with sleep.

This is what Kellymom.com says are the signs of readiness for weaning:

• Baby can sit up well without support.
• Baby has lost the tongue-thrust reflex and does not automatically push solids out of his mouth with his tongue.
• Baby is ready and willing to chew.
• Baby is developing a ?pincer? grasp, where he picks up food or other objects between thumb and forefinger. Using the fingers and scraping the food into the palm of the hand (palmar grasp) does not substitute for pincer grasp development.
• Baby is eager to participate in mealtime and may try to grab food and put it in his mouth.

I think some foods like baby rice, porridge etc won't do any harm before these signs kick in, but for me these are the signs that the baby now needs to start learning to take in other foods than milk, iyswim. And even then it's a gradual process.

Ooops, sorry, on my soapbox again! Please tell me to get down

butter and cream? ugh

WFH - I could tell you to get down but I suspect you wont. And anyway, i'm rather fond of your soapboxing.

Bronze - What about butter under peanut butter? Now that's wrong.

Ahem.

It is scon, pronounced like John.
But the Palace of Scone is pronounced like bone. Dinnae ask me why. Maybe to distinguish it from the thing you eat, in case anyone was likely to get confused and think that the Palace was famous for baking when anyone with half a brain knows it's famous for being the original home of the Stone of Destiny and the place where Scots kings were crowned.

Scons are clearly honest Scottish food and are eaten with butter (and possibly jam but that's perhaps an extravagance and we Scots are against such things). Scones, on the other hand are decadent Sassenach inventions and are eaten with cream and jam. (Shudder)

Hope that has cleared everything up now, ladies.

Auld, I am ginger! Do I not look ginger on FB? I wonder why.
That snottily defiant tone is now biting me on the arse badstyle - I just got back from a yoga class to find that DP has spent one and a half hours with a screaming baby. It was the first time I went out without either of them in the evening! She was asleep when I left! He tried everything and defrosted some milk in the end.
I feel terrible about this. I don't know if I can go out again. They were both so miserable the entire time, it has wiped out all the pleasure I got from the calm of yoga. I feel far worse than before.