happy new year! {and happy anniversary to us}

Happy New Year to you all!  I hope 2013 is filled with giggles aplenty!

We will be celebrating the new year and our second wedding anniversary with champagne, fillet steaks and a pavlova.  Can't wait for a romantic night in with the hubby.

Enjoy your new year plans!

this & that.... at christmas

1. looking cool in my snazzy Christmas jumper and antlers / 2. she wasn't a fan of wearing the antlers {more fashion sense than mummy} / 3. enjoying a jacuzzi bath at Nanny and Pop's house / 4. reading a new book with Daddy / 5. home made mince pies

this little christmas

Our Christmas was certainly different this year with little one crawling around and bringing us all so much joy.  She had a wail of a time playing amongst the paper while we unwrapped presents and she loved the tent that great-grandma bought for her!

The Christmas meal made me really appreciate baby led weaning as Ava sat at the table with us and enjoyed her own Christmas dinner, no mashing or pureeing, just her and her sticky little hands tucking into turkey, potatoes, parsnips, carrots and stuffing {we decided she should give the brussel sprouts a miss!}.  It was fantastic.

I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones!

this little one eats

We are now more than a couple of months into our baby led weaning adventure and we haven't looked back.  Ava is eating more or less anything we give her and she has slotted in with our meals rather well now.  So here are the latest BLW things we have discovered:

1. Get them eating what you're eating.  Now that she is happy with a wide range of textures and flavours, I find that I am mainly feeding Ava whatever we are eating or ate the night before.  When I plan our meals for the week {I'm a planner} I try to pick at least half of our meals that would be suitable for her {i.e. not high in salt or sugars and easy on things like chilli - although she likes spices and garlic it seems}.  This makes life so much simpler.  I just portion out leftovers into ramekins or small tupperware and pop in the fridge or freezer.

2. Get them practising their pincer grip.  Babies love practising new moves.  This is a particularly useful trick when you have them in the high chair but lunch or dinner isn't ready yet and they're getting antsy.  I pop a few peas or lately some seeds that have been winkled out of a pomegranate onto her tray and she happily busies herself trying to get them into her mouth, leaving me to get on with what I need to do.  Win win.

3. Variety is the spice of life.  I find sometimes I think Ava is full as she becomes disinterested in whatever she has been eating and starts "chatting" or throwing her food.  I learnt recently that she is often actually just bored of whatever she was eating but still hungry so I try to have a couple of different tastes and textures at every meal so I can switch them around to keep her interested.  Bored of the fish pie?  Here have some broccoli.  And funnily enough the fish pie becomes interesting again after some broccoli.

4. Small pieces of food.  Lately Ava is at a phase where whatever food is in front of her she will shovel in in fistfuls.  This means that things like toast fingers don't work so well as she shoves the whole finger in and then struggles to chew and swallow.  So I've resorted to smaller pieces of anything that is more firm.  I think they key really is being led by your baby and keeping a close eye on how they deal with different foods.

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Just a few glimpses of Christmas preparations going on around here...

 

1. slightly less than chic christmas day outfits / 2. the snuggliest ever christmas blanket keeping me warm on chilly nights / 3. taking advantage of nap time to get some wrapping done while watching Jamie's 15 minute meals for inspiration / 4. home made present for Ava starting to take shape / 5. last year's christmas craft project / 6. our first year with an artificial tree {yep we went fake in the end, the idea of hoovering up needles every day was more than I could bear}

living the dream

A friend texted the other day and amongst other things asked how I was.  I replied "living the dream" and what was just an off the cuff response got me thinking about how I really am living the dream right now.

For years my best friend and I talked about how one day we would have babies and would hang out together with them and play, and watch them interact.  We talked about what fun it would be.  And we plotted and planned in the hope that we would have our babies at the same time.  I don't think we ever really believed we would be that lucky, but luck would have it our lives panned out in such a way that meant we had our babies only four months apart and here we are: living the dream.  We still can't quite believe we pulled it off and get to spend time having lots of giggles with our babies together and swapping tips and funny stories.

I have such a hoot every day with my precious, funny, surprising little one and I guess all I'm really saying is how grateful I am to have this time together, before I have to go back to work and life gets hectic again.  For now I am trying to make the most of every moment of this wonderful interlude, soak it all up and revel in the every day.

this first little christmas

Being somewhat of a big kid when it comes to Christmas and getting ridiculously excited anyway, I am BEYOND excited now we have the little one around.  True she won't have a clue it's Christmas and will just think we're having an extra fun day with lots of people and fun wrapping paper to tear and chew; but that doesn't stop me getting so excited I could pee.  And what's more, Christmases are just going to keep getting better and better as she gets older.  Hoorah!

I have been doing the usual things to get me in the Christmas spirit.  On top of the general preparations there has been watching Home Alone and Elf {mandatory}, undertaking not one but two little Christmas craft projects {home made cards and a homemade present for Ava - I won't say what it is in case she reads this ;-) } and planning some edible gifts {I'm thinking these}.  December is by far my favourite month and having my little one to share it with makes it all the more special.  My friend and I took our babies to see the real live reindeer at the local garden centre and the displays of twinkling lights, dancing, singing polar bears and a mini steam train.  They loved it, although you'll have to take my word for it as I was only able to capture Ava looking distinctly indifferent, or you might even say, unimpressed.  Trust me, she did smile, particularly at the train, I just don't have the evidence to prove it. The photos did make me laugh however.

One thing I have been delaying is putting up the tree.  We usually go for a real tree as I love the look and smell but am wondering if we should go with artificial this year given that Ava has just started crawling and judging by our experience at a friend's house yesterday, likes the taste of pine needles.  The obvious advantage of an artificial tree is that I can put it up earlier {whoop whoop!} but will really miss the Christmassy smell....tricky...  Either way I have to decide soon as I want to get decorating!

this little one eats

Thought I'd post a little update on our adventures in baby led weaning.  We are thoroughly enjoying BLW and it seems to suit Ava perfectly.  I have moved on and introduced firmer foods such as toast fingers, pieces of cheese and strips of omelette.  There doesn't seem to be anything, other than tuna, that this little one won't eat.

Two events have stood out in our baby led weaning pursuits lately:

1. the discovery of 2 ingredient banana pancakes.  Yes, you heard me: 2.  These are so easy they are ridiculous.  Whip up an egg, stir in half a ripe mashed banana.  Pour onto a non stick pan et voila!  Mini banana pancakes - healthy, easy, fun finger food for the little one {mummy also enjoyed one too}.

2. our first choking incident.  I had prepared myself for choking by watching youtube videos on dealing with choking infants as I suspected I would have to deal with one at some point.  Then last week Ava choked on a piece of cheese {which I fear was too big, live and learn} and I dealt with it surprisingly calmly by thwacking her on the back and she spluttered and returned to a normal colour {and resumed eating as if nothing had happened, lol}.  Phew.  I am pleased that it went well and I didn't panic as now I feel confident should it happen again.  If you are embarking on BLW and are concerned about choking, I would recommend watching some of the videos online too.

the tricky thing about babies

Is it just me or when you get one thing figured out with babies, up pops the next challenge.  I recently sorted out a problem we were having with midday naps, only for a small spate of unexplained night waking to occur.  I think that a significant part of being a mum is learning tricks to deal with babies.  For example when Ava was really tiny and would get into a crying fit, I found one night that white noise stunned her into silence and soothed her to sleep.  However, the problem with tricks is, they don't last long.  A couple of weeks later, Ava decided that white noise wouldn't cut it any more and would escalate her crying upon hearing it.  Back to the drawing board I went.

Then there's the ongoing "stay still while I change your nappy!" struggle.  Ever since Ava learnt to roll, she wants to be on her tummy and that makes for a very messy situation if you are mid nappy change and she does a super fast flip without warning.  Recently I discovered a trick which made a fun game of putting a muslin cloth over her face and waiting for her to pull it off before I said "peekaboo" which for some reason kept her happily on her back while I did a lightening quick nappy change.  As with all tricks, this one had a short shelf life and we were back to attempts to roll, squirming and getting in a huff when I would attempt to pin her down.  The next skill I learnt to help deal with this in part was being able to undo and re-do the poppers on baby grows and vests while she is on her front, meaning that it was only the actual nappy change for which she had to be on her back.  When my husband was laughing on the weekend about how difficult she is to change these days, I rather smugly informed him I had mastered the face down change.  Well, she must have heard me boasting, as the very next day she busted out a new trick of her own in response: the alligator roll {as I call it}.  Ever seen an alligator do the death roll to its prey?  It's kind of like that.  She simply rolls over and over and over continuously, making it necessary to almost chase the poppers around and around in an attempt to fasten them.  I had to laugh.

Perhaps that's half the fun of parenting: the challenge.  I suspect - and have frequently hinted to me by my baby's behaviour - that despite my best attempts, it is in fact her who is in control and not me.