Boo for the End of the Weekend

We had a lovely time at Gran and Papa's house, along with her pre-prepared snacks, the Wee One properly scoffed some roast chicken too. I tore off a strip for her and she sucked and gummed it for ages. That and the baby corn were given the most attention and that's what I expect to see in tomorrow's ablutions.

Eating at someone else's house threw up some question and funny looks. I know from the outside (especially to the older generation) I must look like a hippy earth mother. I can assure you I am not. I love my bras and I don't tie dye my clothes. I breastfeed my baby and Him and I are agreed that along with breast milk, Baby Led Weaning is the way forward for our family. Trying to coax others round to our ideas isn't what we want to spend our time doing. The only audible concern tonight was choking, a valid point, quickly quashed by the Wee One expertly gumming and sucking on everything offered to her.

I read something interesting last night on the Kelly Mom website about weaning about how the best way to get through weaning discussions was to lie and say everything with you and your baby is just hunky dory, even if you're having a horrifying time. I appreciated the sentiment. Yes, it would be easier to sit back and smile and nod along. I'm not usually for the easy way out though. I want to be able to illustrate my decisions with evidence to support them. I feel it's important for people to realise they have free will and to use that free will responsibly. There are ridiculous numbers of people who would never even challenge anything a professional tells them. I'm not suggesting entering into arguments, I'm suggesting engaging in the decisions you make for another human being that you are entirely responsible for.

Heavy discussion for a Sunday evening, I apologise if I've made you brain fuzzy/angry/confused.

Ahhhh Sunday. Returning to the week tomorrow, Him back at work and it all goes round again. I'm thinking it's time to start offering lunch everyday now. It would be so much easier to do with someone else floating around.

Roll on next weekend.

Out and About

We're heading to see Gran and Papa today for Sunday Dinner. Not knowing what's going to be on the menu, I've taken the initiative to pack the Wee One's dinner to take with us.

It took less than 5 minutes to prepare, pack and put back in the fridge. We have some cucumber sticks, some cheese sticks, baby corn (which I'll zing in the microwave for 1 minute before serving) and of course bread sticks. It's given me some confidence in getting things together for going out.

We've not went to the Highland Games today, it's miserable, windy and cold. I'm sure there will be plenty of time to let the Wee One hear some bagpipes. Do I hear the Highland Show calling??

We Are Family

I always used to love a Saturday. Wake late, pub early, football, return to the pub, stumble home. Him and I have had some blooming marvellous Saturdays spent like this, our relationship has been built on these kinds of days. I'm not quite sure of my feelings of them having been non-existent for more than a year now.

Now the Wee One is with us, I'm determined Saturdays are going to be just as much fun, albeit a lot less boozy. Today we headed to the library, all three of us for a song and rhyme time run by the Scottish Book trust. We had a lot of fun and the Wee One was very vocal. We sneaked off for a wonderful lunch and then strolled a out in the sunshine before returning home to relax.

Now that's what I'm talking about, a proper good Saturday! And it didn't end there, we still had dinner to think about. Following on from last nights deconstructed fajitas, I reckoned I could continue the theme. The Wee One loved it! She munched happily on some griddled chicken, slices of avocado and roasted sweet potato wedge. We were sans high chair this evening because it was getting washed and dried, so she was between two laps. It might be my addled baby brain, but I truly think there was less mess tonight. Deconstructed food works well, and I think it embodies Baby Led Weaning. Obviously at nearly 3 weeks in, I'm not expecting my 6 month old to be eating a full dinner like us yet, but taking out elements of our meal is making it very easy on me. Our aim, of course, is that eventually she will be eating what we do, whether that's a salad, soup or a homemade curry.

All three of us thoroughly enjoyed our dinner tonight. The chicken and avocado were given the most attention by the Wee One. Him even gave the dish glowing praise.

Here's to more Saturdays like this.

Chicken, Bacon & Avocado Salad

1 packet of Baby Spinach Leaves
1 punnett of Plum Cherry Tomatoes
2 Chicken Breasts
3 slices of Smoked Bacon
1 Avocado
Dressing of your choice (We had Paul Newman's ranch)

1. Wash spinach and tomatoes and set aside. Peel, stone and slice avocado. Cover with a little lemon juice and set aside.

2. In a hot griddle pan fry the bacon, with no oil, until crispy. Remove from the pan and leave to one side.

3. Butterfly the chicken breasts. After your griddle pan is clean again, heat until just before smoking stage, usually 1 minute to 2 minutes. Cook chicken in the griddle pan until cooked through. This should only take around 5 minutes if you have butterflied the chicken thinly enough.

4. Arrange spinach and tomatoes on two plates. Slice the cooked chicken and bacon thinly and sprinkle on top. Arrange the avocado on top as well. Serve with dressing as you like it and a bowl of roasted sweet potato wedges.

To Meat or Not to Meat?

I had a conversation with the mum of a dear friend recently who said she felt immense responsibility when deciding to feed my friend meat or not when she was a baby. I filed the conversation away, knowing in the future I would refer back to it. It wasn't something we had really discussed at all as the parents of a new child. The choice of pram was given more consideration. It stopped us in our tracks tonight.

For dinner tonight I was facing the dilemma. Him and I were having having steak fajitas tonight, so tortilla, raw peppers and cheese were already on the menu. Should I offer her steak though? We did, and the decision was based on the Baby Led Weaning philosophy that the Wee One will eat what we eat. I wimped out of the moral questions of meat, but I know I'll be trying my best to source more meat now that is from animals who have lived to high welfare standards. I've promised myself this many times, maybe I'll start listening now though.

The peppers were a huge hit. The yellow one in particular. I'm looking forward to roasting some vegetable for the Wee One to see how she reacts to them, peppers will be great for that. And the 2cm by 5cm slice of steak? Chewed and sucked on with relish. Left hanging out the side of her mouth on occasion when she decided to shove a breadstick on in there as well.

We decided to meat. Maybe I'm making a big deal out of a decision that most people take for granted. I'm glad we took a minute to think about it and the implications it has on the Wee One's own life. I hope I don't ever need to explain our decision to her, however I am glad we have reasons to give her. Whether our reasons are correct will be for her to decide in the future.

There's Banana in the Poo!!

I had to wake up the Wee One this morning. She went down with a bottle from Him and was still asleep at 9.30am.

We had a wet nappy. And then another wet nappy. I knew it was coming. It was inevitable. I heard a distant rumble while she was on Gran's knee. I'd had some premonition that had made me remove the dress only moments before! And it appeared, almost as instantly as the noise. It was dripping through the vest horizontally. I was rewarded though when the nappy was removed. There was evidence of yesterday's banana!!!! My clever wee monkey had actually swallowed some banana!!!

So after the excitement of nappy investigations, there was a bath. The Wee One loves a bath. She was enjoying her bath, eating her toes as she went and I noticed a wee bubble issuing from her posterior. It doesn't take much to amuse me, so I had a wee giggle to myself. I had just made up my mind to remove her from the bath and I noticed a much larger bubble, I was about to giggle again when I realised a yellow cloud followed the bubble. First time in 6 months and 1 week that we've had poo in the bath! Unbelievable.

It's Friday! Looking forward to having a nice calm weekend with lots of food and fun. Possible visit to the Highland Games at the weekend? We'll keep an eye on the weather for that one. Can't wait to see how the Wee One would respond to her first hearing of bagpipes!

Routine?

I'm thinking today that I'm a bad mummy!! We had a bread stick after morning milk. A banana for lunch and then some cheese and baby corn for tea. Only one puke. And don't kid yourself that any of that food actually got consumed. It's was gnawed and sucked on as usual. Great progress I feel just making the most hilarious faces when food touched her lips!

I know we've not been doing it long, but my consistency hasn't been great in doing more than one meal a day. Today was an exception. We only have one routine and that's bed time. Changed into jammies, into sleeping bag and then feed in a dark room. We don't have set times for going to bed, having naps or having milk, I always go with the flow. This go with the flow attitude is making settling to set meal times a little bit awkward to get into. I'm probably worrying myself over an issue that doesn't really exist. I've not felt ridiculously guilty for something for around 12 hours, so I suppose this will fill the void.

The other issue we had today was a wee sore tummy. A milk feed helped it "pass" so to speak, and that poor vest the Wee One was wearing will never be the same again. One plus for Baby Led Weaning, or food in general I suppose, less blow outs! We usually have one a day which results in a full change of clothes.

I'm think as well I want to buy some coverall bibs. We're going through clothes everyday at an exponential rate. I'd rather spend time with the wee one than spend all day doing washings. Thank goodness for Him, he really does more than his share to make things easy on me.

So the point of this ramble? I'm not sure if not establishing a routine with sleeps and feeds etc is going to help or hinder our foray into food. Today is a day for being unsure mostly. There's nothing worse than the days that you doubt every decision you make.

On the plus side, I finally finished a sock for the Wee One and have the other cast on! I'm pleased, halfway there, a nearly finished project.

Bread of Life

I like making bread. Pre-baby I would usually make it around once a month. Post baby, it just wasn't happening. So many other things took priority. With Baby Led Weaning, I wanted to start making my own bread products for the Wee One to enjoy. So today I finally was able to, thanks to my mother in law who came over and kept the Wee One occupied whilst I cooked!

I made some bread sticks, mainly because whenever I've had a shop bought breadstick, I have found them pretty salty on my palate, goodness knows what a baby would taste. By making them myself I was able to control just how much salt went in, as well as sugar, and no nasty hidden things either.

I was rewarded mightily for my efforts. Bread sticks are highly favoured and were chewed and sucked on for lengthy periods. Also popular today was cucumber and cheese. We had two gagging incidents over two mealtimes and I could actually see food being consumed. I'm an extremely proud mummy this evening. The Wee One is getting the hang of it and she also looks like she's enjoying what she's doing!

She was weighed today, and at just over 6 months, she's weighing in at 20lbs dead. No wonder I can't dance about with her for very long of time and I'm really glad I didn't invest in a baby carrier either!

But back to the bread. I was extremely overwhelmed when I realised the Wee One was actually eating bread I made and it was also the first bread she had ever held and tasted. Bread is just such a staple to life and I really felt the transition today between milk and food. The added bonus was that the Wee One seemed to love it!

Breadsticks

250g Strong Flour (I like tipo 00 flour)
250g Semolina (you can substitute for more strong flour if you wish)
1/2 Pint Tepid Water
1 1/2 7g Sachets of Instant Yeast
1 Heaped tsp of Sugar (cannot be omitted as is needed to feed the yeast and allow the bread to prove)
1 level teaspoon of salt (this can be omitted if you wish)

1. Combine both types of flour in a very large mixing bowl. Sprinkle over the yeast, sugar and salt and combine also.

2. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add half the water, mixing everything together with the fingertips of one hand. Gradually add the rest of the water until a dough forms. If you feel it is getting too sticky add more flour, if too dry you can try small amounts of water.

3. Kneed your dough well on a lightly floured surface for around 5 minutes (all of these steps can be performed using a food mixer with a dough hook if you prefer).

4. Form your dough into a a ball and then flatten slightly. Place on a baking tray and flour the top of your dough. Cover a leave to prove in a warmish place for around 30-40 mins.

5. Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees celcius. Once risen, knock the dough back slightly and roll out to around a 1cm thickness.

6. Slice into long 1-2cm wide strips and place on a baking tray that has been dusted with semolina. Dust each strip with semolina as well.

7. Leave to prove for 10-15 minutes and then back in the oven for 10-15 minute until golden brown.

8. Once cooled break the breadsticks into 10cm lengths and put in an air tight container or freezer bag. They should keep well for a few weeks in the air tight contained or a few months in the freezer.