Food

PostingFree fruit in pregnancy

fruit_Small.jpgPregnant women and pre-school children are to be given free fruit, as part of a Scottish government £40m initiative to tackle obesity over the next three years. I'm hoping this means a fruit basket could be on its way over as I type.... I could quite fancy a kiwi, mango or papaya with my tea.

Posted 24 January 2008 18:24 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Food Health

PostingHell's kitchen

"I've got us a lovely supper," warns Va-vay.

"Oh yes, love, what's that?" I say from my bed, trying not to glance at the 'sick bin' that rarely leaves my bedside these days. Some days the mere idea of food is enough to make me hurl. I'm hoping today isn't one of them, though the rising bile at the back of my throat suggests otherwise.

"Spinach and potatoes," he announces.

"And?" I think, waiting for him to unveil the crowning glory of our evening meal that he's led me to believe awaits.

Some salmon? Steak? Even bean burgers or pasta would be alright. Maybe stew or pizza?

The pause stretches on uncomfortably long.

"Were you expecting... something else?" he starts, accusingly.

"No! Spinach and potatoes. How... lovely."

"I'm going to cook the potatoes so they come out all fluffy. You know how I showed you the other day, when you make them explode." Va-vay's little-boy enthusiasm for the ways of the kitchen is sometimes endearing, on other occasions (this one) just perplexing and annoying.

Briefly, I remember Va-vay doing a Nigella on me and bashing an innocent-looking baked potato with the blunt handle of a carving knife, because, or so he said, doing so led to a superior interior texture of spud. I tried to marvel at the sight of the thing's innards spread across the plate, but couldn't see quite what we were meant to be excited about.

"I thought that would be a good supper," he says, going all huffy.

"It is! It will be," I say, with a touch too much jollity.

He disappears into the kitchen. For much, much longer than it would take to cook some spinach and get some baked potatoes going. Eventually, well over an hour later he reappears.

"There's been a small delay," he says.

"What's going on?" I ask meekly.

"Oh, nothing," he says airily, as if I couldn't be expected to understand. "Just the potatoes cooking."

At nine thirty - more than two hours after Va-vay got home - supper makes it entrance. I'm desperate for food, as I alternate between cravings and aversions to the stuff.

"This isn't baked potatoes," I point out, in what even I realise to be a statement of the blindingly obvious.

"I could tell from your tone of voice you didn't want baked potatoes. So I've made this instead!"

"This" turns out to be potato and spinach gratin. Unfortunately, undercooked potato and spinach gratin.

We try to ignore that fact as we sit up in bed and listen to each other crunch through the potato. I wonder if a wobbly lower crown will survive the night. My mind turns to the Irish potato famine.

"Are you enjoying it?" asks Va-vay, in utter defiance of any realistic observation of the situation.

"Va-vay, I don't mean to be ungrateful or anything, but it's a bit undercooked."

"No, it's not!"

"Look, I'm sorry, but it is undercooked."

"Then just don't eat anymore," he tells me.

Sad to say, I'm so hungry I would eat a bag of mouldy old potatoes by now. I push on through to the end, then fall asleep.

A couple of days later, Va-vay has recovered his good humour and admits the gratin was not his finest culinary hour.

"Why didn't you just do the baked potatoes like you said?" I ask him.

"I wanted to do something nice for you," he says. "I could tell you didn't want a baked spud and spinach. It's alright for me, being a veggie face. You wanted something else." My heart wells.

Later, I confide in him that I'm nervous about a big Christmas meal with assorted people I haven't seen in months.

"You don't have to go," he says.

"I do, Va-vay. Really, they're expecting me to be there."

"If you stay here, I'll cook you a nice potato gratin."

He knows the way to a woman's heart, that man.

Posted 13 December 2007 14:52 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Food Husband Mistakes

PostingJammin'

September07cropped031_Small.jpgFor years, I aspired to be a domestic goddess. I had all these fantasies about how when I got married I would practise the arts of cooking, knitting, patchwork, pottery, quilting, tapestry, gardening and jam-making.

My future life as wife and mother was so perfect in my singleton imagination. I was going to be the kind of earth mother who made her own organic stock from scratch, could run up a pair of curtains on her machine and had a pasta-maker I used, oh, more than once. Since I only got married at 37, I had a long time to polish up the fantasies, without much of a reality check. Now here I am at the coal face. And I realise how very difficult a job being a good housewife can be. This stuff is tough. Much, much tougher than people acknowledge. But I'm no quitter.

Here is my progress report so far.

1. Cooking

Two or three nights a week I manage a proper home-cooked meal for Va-vay. The rest of the time it's ready meals via M&S. Beanie is refusing to eat anything I cook her. She downs her spoon and bangs on the table for Petit Filou. It's pretty dispiriting. I try not to take it personally.

2. Knitting

Reasonable success here. I've made Beanie a blanket, stuffed hippo and monkey and am half-way through a cardigan for her.

3. Patchwork

Zero progress. Nul points.

4. Pottery

Attended class. Managed to make and glaze large plantpot, of which I am disproportionately proud. I love it. Gave Va-vay evil looks when he suggested re-patriating it to one of his cupboards.

5. Quilting

Thought about going to class. Decided against, on grounds of lack of time.

6. Tapestry

Have stitched in another tulip on a canvas I bought four years ago. My sister came round. Looked at the canvas. Said: "Is there any woman in the world who doesn't have a half-finished tapestry kicking round somewhere in the house?" I don't know. Is there?

7. Gardening

Have applied for an allotment. Estimated waiting time: five years. They are all the rage in Edinburgh after Antonia Swinson wrote her enchanting book about them, You Are What You Grow. Meantime, I have geraniums.

8. Jam-making

Have tried hard here, with mixed results. Two nights ago I made my first attempt at this, after Granny gave me two pounds of plums from her garden. It was all going so well.... then we got to the part where the recipe said to turn the heat up as high as it will go, and then in seconds my beautiful red jam turned into caramelised brown treacle (pictured). Gutting. It's still edible, despite being carbonised.

Other News

I've been lucky enough to get a couple of awards recently.

Lovely Omega Mum at 3kidsnojob, a daily must-read for me, kindly gave me this one:

Awsomeblogger_Small.jpgMany thanks, Omega Mum. There are lots of people I'd like to award it to. I've decided I'd like to pass it on to DJ Kirkby, since her blog Novel with No Name has got me so involved I'm hopping up and down with rage at what's happening to her heroine, a new mother with a less-than-supportive husband.

Lou at the Wonderful World of Anna Gibson was good enough to give me this Nice Matters award. Lou has a young daughter close in age to Beanie and writes about so many experiences I've had as well. Her blog has helped me realise I'm not alone in many of my fears and worries about being a new mum. Many thanks for the award, Lou. Much appreciated.

nicemattersthumbnail_Small.jpgI'm sorry I couldn't award this to more people. In the end, I've had to choose two, so here goes: I'd like to pass it on to Erica of Littlemummy and British Parent Bloggers, because I enjoy her blogging tremendously, she truly is a nice person and we're friends.

I'd also like to give it to Vicky, of Little Legends, the free guide to places for kids in the UK, and Manic Mama, an entertaining mamalogue about life looking after her three little boys.

Posted 12 September 2007 22:16 | Number of comments: 16 | Comments

Activities Blogging Domestic chaos Food Older mother

PostingWorld's oldest dad

Age is all in the mind. Or so the world's oldest new dad would say. He has fathered his 21st child at the age of 90, and says he plans to continue breeding for at least another decade. After reading about these exploits I feel I hardly even qualify as a slightly older parent, despite having The Bean at 38. Next to this guy, I'm an upstart.

Nanu Ram Jogi, a farmer in the Indian state of Rajistan, told The Times he can't remember exactly how many children he's produced with his four wives but estimates he has twelve sons, nine daughters and at least twenty grandchildren. He attributes his success to eating all kinds of meat: rabbits, lamb, chicken and wild animals. "There is a dense forest around the village," he told the paper. "I go hunting most days and eat whatever I catch." The only slight hitch to meat eating in my home is that my husband, who's 39,  is staunch vegetarian. So while we're loving the veggie cooking ideas from Lily and Chew, there's no chance of imitating  Nanu Ram Jogi's lifestyle. Perhaps just as well.

Posted 23 August 2007 10:58 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Dads Food Older mother

PostingFood fight

Following my Wednesday rant here about how nonsensical it is to blame working mums for the rise in child obesity, it seems the food companies are getting worried they might end up taking the rap after all. Maybe passing the buck to working mums isn't, errr..., working so well.

Eleven US food firms are about to announce voluntary self-regulation on how they advertise to children. The UK's Chartered Institute of Marketing is urging British companies to follow suit. The Institute's David Thorp said: "Companies must now face up to their responsibilities and decisions must include the likely impact on society. Responsibility no longer ends at the retailer's shelf and those who market to children must look for ways of promoting a more healthy [sic] diet and lifestyle."

I'm sure the thought never crossed their minds that voluntary self-regulation was a palatable pre-emptive to legislation. Still, any development that stops the ridiculous suggestion that working mothers are responsible for children's expanding waistlines is welcome.

Posted 27 July 2007 14:03 | Number of comments: 2 | Comments

Food Guilt Work vs mothering

PostingLeave us mums alone

The children of working mothers are more likely to be obese or overweight, says a new study. Around a quarter of the 13,000 children studied by the Institute of Child Health in London were overweight or obese by the age of three. No prizes for guessing who's allegedly to blame.

"Long hours of maternal employment, rather than lack of any money, may impede young children's access to healthy foods and physical activity," said the researchers.

The more successful mothers are, the worse the problem, which I find hard to believe. Children in households earning £22,000 to £33,000 were 10% more likely to be overweight than in households earning under £11,000.

In the last 25 years stay-at-home mothers have fallen from nearly 55% of the total to just 21%.

Reading studies like this, I wonder why working mothers seem to attract more flak than convicted criminals/fraudsters/estate agents.

What's behind these studies that attempt to guilt-trip hard-working and loving mothers, doing their best to keep a roof over their families' head?

Why don't we see reports criticising the government for lack of affordable, flood-free UK housing that would mean more mums could stay at home?

Or a study calling for better-paid, higher-status part-time jobs, with more flexible working, that would mean fewer parents have to work full-time?

Or more criticism of the food giants that make their money peddling fatty convenience foods to young kids? 

Leave us mums alone, I say.

Posted 25 July 2007 12:51 | Number of comments: 21 | Comments

Angst Food Health Parenting gurus Work Work vs mothering

PostingFood, food, glorious food

Cevennes hillsMy friend and fellow Edinburgh blogger Erica from Littlemummy, one of my favourite parenting sites, has tagged me in a food meme. Yum, yum, yum! Lots of lovely food in my tummy! So has dear DJ Kirkby from Exquisite Dreams (and Random Ramblings from an Anxious Mind) and Adventures of a Wild Hippie Child.

Ladies, are you trying to tell me something?!!! Well, okay, I confess, you've got it right. I am fond of my nosh. Though I'm not that large..... actually I'm normal-sized (but tall).

The Hippie Child blog, by the way, is excerpts from DJ's fascinating and colourful novel in progress about her bohemian childhood. Anybody who liked Esther Freud's enchanting child's-eye view novel Hideous Kinky would do well to head over there and have a read. It's good stuff.

DJ's already changed the food meme rules, so I'm feel less bad that I'm going to write about one of my favourite eating places, as well as restaurants (as requested in the original meme). I didn't even know what a meme was until a few days ago. Oh, the shame of it. Here goes, then.

1. Hilltops (like those in the picture!)

Even the grottiest cheese sandwich tastes like manna from heaven if you've had to climb a hill before eating it. Same for a thermos of tea. Warming, refreshing, comforting in the great outdoors. Ordinary in most other places.

I take the time to appreciate food more when I've had to carry it on my back up a gradient all morning. And I've worked up an appetite. The last mangled sandwich I'd throw away at home becomes treasured sustenance outdoors.

Husband and I still rhapsodise about some Waitrose plum tart we shared atop a hillock on the South Downs when we were still "just friends".

2. Sprio & Co, 37 St Stephen Street, Edinburgh

Stylish and friendly Italian cafe in one of Edinburgh's loveliest streets. It rubs shoulders with the second-hand shops that reportedly inspired Edinburgh writer Anne Fine, author of Madame Doubtfire. It's like stepping into a small slice of Milan. The owners put real love and attention into the food. And being Italian, they love children!

3. A Room in the Town, 18 Howe Street, Edinburgh

Great for larger get-togethers. Convivial and bustling. Its big mural, pictured (left), gives an idea of what to expect. We go mostly at weekend lunchtimes, nowadays with The Bean. Lovely, warm atmosphere. Great food - at surprisingly reasonable prices. Meals work out cheaper than at Pizza Express. Locally-grown produce. Lovely, friendly staff. They still tease me about waddling in there 42 weeks pregnant with The Bean.

4. Petit Paris, 38

Posted 10 July 2007 22:33 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Daughter Edinburgh Food Fun Husband Out and about

PostingNever-good-enough Mum

You just can't get it right as a parent. Hours of my life spent grafting at the coal face of motherhood, hacking up wholesome organic vegetables and reducing them to pureed slime, of which my daughter might, on a good day, consent to eat a grudging spoonful, and now look what happens.

I finally master an RSS feed from the BBC and one of the first things I see today is the latest directive from Mothering HQ telling me I've wasted my time, my sweet potatoes and my freezer space by pureeing all this food.

In all honesty I always knew The Bean preferred fromage frais to anything I made. Now it seems that pureed food is not just unpalatable, but bad, bad, bad.

For it seems purees are in fact the work of evil food manufacturers who want parents in their commercial  thrall for years to come.

The Unicef Baby-Friendly Initiative almost equates pureeing food with  formula-milk makers peddling their evil powder to third-world countries.

Truly, motherhood and martyrdom go hand in hand. I know now how poor old St Sebastian must have felt. Not so much plugged full of unfriendly arrows, as, in my case, pierced to the heart by my own Moulinex whizzing wand, stoned by a flurry of small plastic food receptacles, shamed in the village stocks by the liberal daubing of pureed parsnip thrown at me by my own daughter.

Like all parenting gurus, Unicef wheels out a battery of dire consequences for any parents foolish enough to consider ignoring the received wisdom on pureeing.

You see, babies get addicted to pureed food.

And spoon-feeding babies pureed food is unnatural and unnecessary.

Why, it could delay the onset of their chewing skills. Babies unlucky enough to be fed pureed food by their reckless parents have little control over how much they eat.

Which in turn makes them vulnerable to getting blocked up. Oh, and they could also become fussy eaters in later life.

If Unicef had their way babies would survive on a milk-only diet for six months and then move straight onto solids. Bypassing evil gloop altogether.

I've yet to meet a mother who made it to the six-month mark before breaking out the Organix baby rice. If anyone reading this has a child who made it that far on milk alone, I congratulate you. Please could you let the rest of us know how you managed it.

So, here's my idea, how about we expand the Unicef remit. It could include not just a Baby-Friendly Initiative, but a Mother-Friendly one too.

Ideally, one that publishes research proving what we all know - that once babies are onto baby rice at four or five months, their mums can get a decent night's sleep, without waking twice a night to open up the mini-bar.

Actually, no, forget about baby rice. If I'd known Unicef's ideas on purees sooner there'd have been no mulched-up carrots or rice. No, I'd have served up a nice, tasty steak and chips to my daughter. Start as you mean to go on. Medium rare, I think.... Softer on the (non-existent) teeth that way.

Posted 19 June 2007 02:38 | Number of comments: 22 | Comments

Daughter Food Mistakes Parenting gurus Perfectionism Breastfeeding

PostingJob for life

Apparently if the typical stay-at-home mother were paid for her work, she'd earn the annual equivalent of £70,000, at least according to a set of so-called "compensation experts" based in the US. Unfortunately, the survey doesn't make clear who's going to fork out the moolah for all our hard work. Government? Husband? Children? Will our kids add this to their student loans? But still, it's nice to know we have some earning power left, even if it is mostly theoretical. I first read about this at Manic Mama.

My main objection to this survey, produced by Salary.com, is that I think they've missed quite a few important activities from their list of maternal roles, which falls far short of covering the full job spec. So I've listed a few additional roles they might want to consider next time they're doing the survey.

This is their list of jobs making up the £70,000 salary: 1. Housekeeper 2. Cook 3. Psychologist 4. Day care centre teacher 5. Laundry machine operator 6. Van driver 7. Facilities manager 8. Janitor 9. Computer operator 10. Chief executive officer (though try telling that one to Dad).

And here are the ones I think they missed. Apologies for some of them being so medieval. Please let me know your thoughts on any others that should be on the list.

1. Nightwatchperson   Okay, gone is the lantern or candle of yesteryear, replaced by more up-to-date equivalents, like the Tomy baby monitor. And it's more dressing gown than big caped cloak and boots. But there's still the same lonely, cold pacing around after midnight, to check that all's well, investigating cries in the night. And what about some extra money for unsociable hours, I'd like to know?

2. Dancer/Singer   Before having my daughter I considered myself a fairly shy and inhibited person, except when drunk. Now I never drink but will sing, dance and cavort almost anywhere if I reckon there's a chance it'll make my daughter stop crying. "Old McDonald had a farm, ey-ay-ey-ay-oh!!!"

3. PR Officer   "You'll never guess what our beautiful daughter did at nursery today! She pulled herself up to standing using just a shoebox for balance!" I almost have to stop myself from issuing a press release. And unlike many esteemed PRs, I actually, really, truly believe in how marvellous this all is....

4. Health and Safety Officer   Detaching Mr Bear's pink nightcap, lest my daughter swallow it, nagging long-suffering husband to nail bookshelves to the wall, covering sockets, hiding toilet cleaner, keeping daughter away from dishwasher and oven, begging kind neighbours not to paint their front door while we're around...

5. Journalist   I've filled notebooks with detailed accounts of my daughter's exploits that I plan to keep for posterity.

6. Nutritionist   Poor performance appraisal here. People brandish Annabel Karmel books at me all the time, and I do my best, but follow her recipes in vain. Actually, I spend ages agonising over my daughter's food intake, still currently limited to apple puree, porridge and bread sticks, because I know it can't be that healthy. Her dad persuaded her tonight to add banana, raspberries and raisins to the list, which she did grudgingly. Anything I cook is a big no-no. Last week I had my head in my hands at suppertime, crying, I felt such a failure for cooking up this food she instantly rejects. She throws it at me, or on the floor.

7. Speech therapist   Daughter: "Haahlaahla" Me: "That's brilliant! Let's say it again." Daughter: "Laaaaaaa" Abrupt stop. Me: "Look, the little monkey in the book is saying 'Hug'. Isn't that clever? Let's try and say 'Huuuuuuuug'." I could go on.

8. Stylist   It's not as easy as it looks to achieve that casually thrown together boho-chic look for the under-twos. Especially when the under-two in question is determined to shed socks, shoes and cardi wherever she can, before regurgitating Annabel's rejected gloop onto her top.

9. Entertainments Officer   Playgroup, nursery, "playdates" - urgh, terrible expression, park. It all takes organisation, you know, even if the babies and toddlers mostly ignore one another at these various social events, except to "borrow" each other's toys.

10. Nurse   Bathing gunky eyes in salt water, kissing scratches better, clearing up sick, administering Calpol. Oh, I forgot, nurses are like stay-at-home mothers, another largely disempowered social group, being (mainly) female carers on a low wage.

Posted 20 May 2007 20:11 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Daughter Food Husband Language Nursery Play Playgroup Safety Work

PostingHome working: 10 drawbacks

Much as I hate to use this dreadful terminology, I joined the ranks of 'WAHMs', or 'Work at Home Mums', when Katie reached ten months. Before that I was a full-time 'SAHM' (Stay at Home Mum), though I didn't even know it at the time - it's only since I got back to work and had a chance to waste time browsing the net I found out all these new terms. The first six months looking after Katie I didn't miss work at all. Then my friends starting going back to work, one by one, and I got lonely.

Often when I'm talking to people about my work (journalism), they say something encouraging about how it must be easy to do that from home, combining it with looking after the baby. Well, it's not.

In my experience, the reality is that homeworking is really only for people with iron self-discipline, who are motivated and well-organised and aware of the drawbacks as well as the benefits. I am not one of those people.

Listed below are some of the things to bear in mind if you're thinking of becoming a work-at-home-parent. Most are based on personal experience, some from talking with other parents who live, work, eat and sleep in the same small flat.

Today I've written about some of the disadvantages to being a 'WAHM'.

It's not all doom and gloom. There are very real upsides to working this way. Please visit the site tomorrow, to read about the benefits to young parents of working this way.



DRAWBACKS TO BEING A 'WAHM'

1. Don't be deceived into thinking you'll spend more time with your children this way.

You won't. You still have to organise proper childcare for them. Anything else, and you're shortchanging yourself, your clients and them.

2. Home-based childcare will make it impossible to focus on your work

If you choose home-based childcare (for example Granny or childminder coming to your home), you'll find it hard to knuckle down while your children are playing next door.

3. Sleepy head. Just had lunch? Feeling like a little nap?

I'll put my head down for ten minutes. Oops. The afternoon just slid away again. All those hours gone, taken up with what was meant to be a short snooze. And no work to show for it at the end.

4. You may think you're only working two days, but will your clients and contacts?

Once, an all-important contact I was chasing like mad at the start of the week called back unexpectedly a few days later at the nadir, nay, the very trough of my day - Katie's supper-time. Hard-nosed PRs will call any time of day or night if they think there's a plug in it for a client.

6. You get landed with most of the housework

I'm really lucky in that my husband more than pulls his weight around the house. But being at home all day, I still end up loading, unloading dishwashers, vacuuming, cleaning away dishes, wiping worktops, and doing the endless laundry. As soon as I've done it, it all needs doing again. And it's so very, very dull.

7. Lack of company

It's lonely, being at home on my own all day. Chatting to the postman and the old lady two doors down doesn't fill the gap. Even my husband starts winding up phone conversations after ten or 15 minutes. It's why I've turned to blogging. You start to fall behind professionally, as well, if you're not in offices where you can keep up with latest ways of doing things.

8. You've got to have real self-discipline to get through the work

Otherwise the lure of the biscuit tin will get me every time. I falter and stumble, but have to keep things together because I need the work.

9. I can't appreciate my home anymore, it's also my place of work

I spend too much time here. I notice every piece of dirt, every crumb. I need to go on holiday before I can enjoy where I live again. Home's stopped being a retreat.

10. It's hard to draw a line under the end of each day.

Is it obsessive-compulsive to check emails at midnight?

Posted 08 May 2007 12:18 | Number of comments: 2 | Comments

Daughter Food Granny Home Husband Play Pregnancy Work Home working

PostingPros and cons of nursery life

Having spent the last few days fuming at stories about greedy 'have-it-all' mothers repenting their wicked career-minded ways by shunning nurseries and staying home to look after their kids, here are some of my thoughts on the pros and cons of nurseries, based on personal experience.

PROS

Making switch from bottle to breast

It was nursery staff who first persuaded my daughter, then aged 10 months, to take a bottle, something I'd been trying for weeks, with no success. Since then she hasn't looked back. I was beginning to fear I'd be breastfeeding at the school gates. Thanks to that breakthrough, people have now stopped saying things like: "Did you see that programme on extraordinary breastfeeding?"

Healthy balanced diet

At home, K survives on a diet of porridge, apple puree and biscuits. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying on my part. I have my Annabel Karmel cookbook and I'm not afraid to use it. But I cook up spaghetti bolognaise, fish pasta and cauliflower cheese in vain. Even my old stand-by of sweet potato and chicken is out of favour. However, the nursery staff can get her to eat chicken papaya, no less. I've been asking for tips on how they do it.

Keener to walk

Don't know if peer group pressure is altogether a good thing, but it seems to me that since K has seen other children about her age, or a bit older, starting to toddle, she's keener to do the same.

CONS

These probably reflect my shortcomings as much as the nursery's, but here goes:

Separation anxiety (mine, not hers)

I haven't quite come to terms yet with my daughter being pushed around the streets of Edinburgh, in the nursery's three-seater buggies, by someone other than me. The thought I might bump into her "out a walk" at lunchtime is wierd.

She's comes home smelling of someone else's perfume.

Disconcerting. I get a bit jealous. But I also take this as a positive, since it means that she must be getting lots of cuddles.

The, err, commercial aspect of childcare...

A nursery worker burst into the baby room yesterday. "Okay, we don't have to do Edward Simmons and Jack McLeod today. They're on holiday till the 17th."

It's painful to be disabused of fantasy everyone loves K as much as me

A couple of the people who look after her at nursery are fond of her. Everyone else is well-disposed. Nobody, strangely, seems aware of how special and wonderful she is.

Picking up bad habits

No long after starting nursery K started sucking thoughtfully on pieces of toast, before allowing them to slither out her mouth and down onto her front, where they linger, transformed into repellant brown slugs. Could never prove it, but suspect it's a lark she first saw at nursery.



Hotbed of germs

Babies pick up every bug going as soon as they start at nursery.

You can't get the days or times you necessarily want

Which seems to contradict the story about all these empty nursery places left vacant by repentant nasty hard career women. In my experience, any decent nursery gets booked up months, even years, ahead.

Posted 02 May 2007 11:04 | Number of comments: 3 | Comments

Breastfeeding Daughter Nursery Play Pregnancy Work Edinburgh Food

PostingTeatime shift the hardest in mothering

The hardest shift in mothering is late afternoon. The stairs to our second-floor flat become steeper than only hours earlier, as my daughter and I struggle up them to face the shared daily ordeal of tea, bath and bed-time. I clockwatch as the minutes crawl by from 5.30pm to 7pm, awaiting my husband's return from work.

Tea-time last night was fraught. Unlike we adults K does not engage in social pretensions. When she doesn't like food, she waves it away with an imperious gesture. I admire her honesty, as well as resenting it.

Enthroned in her ergonomic high chair, which I wish I could say I scrub down nightly, but don't, she watched me scrabble in the freezer for food, heat it, decant it, and ferry it to her. Cue the dismissive wave. Still just 5.30pm? Surely not.

Sweet potato and chicken was rejected, before she relented slightly and consented to eat a little. Apple puree got a warmer reception. Her biscuit was an outright success. She placed it in her hand, then put her bunched up fist, containing the biscuit, in her mouth, and sat like that for about ten minutes, sucking in a contemplative fashion.

At 5.45pm my husband got home and caused me to rethink my views on this time of day. For in his hands was a bunch of luminous pink roses, for me.

Posted 28 April 2007 06:39 | Number of comments: 0 | Comments

Daughter Home Husband Food

PostingDaddy on porridge strike

I have to wonder about the wisdom of complete candour in these posts. After making fun of J for his fanatical concern about K's morning porridge intake, he's done what any sensible person would and downed his spatula, tidied away his recipes and gone on porridge strike.

He hasn't actually mentioned my cheekiness, but said with unusual firmness a couple of days ago that K needed milk, not porridge, first thing, the time when he's looking after her, and would I mind doing her "pairritch", as Robert Louis Stevenson calls it in Kidnapped. So when I got up this morning, just before he set off for work, the Jordans Organic Porridge Oats lay unopened on the worktop, awaiting my ministrations.

I forgot to ask him before he left for the recipe he created to make specially small baby-sized quantities and couldn't face ploughing through the crusty recipe books where he might have left it, so decided to wing it. As I might have mentioned, I'm not really much of a morning person, and this turned out to be a mistake.

First I tried the porridge in the microwave but it all boiled over so there was nothing left in the bowl. Like a porridge volcano, really. I wiped up all the mess with kitchen towels.

I thought it might be easier on the hob, but had to keep adding more oats, as it looked too runny. It still didn't look right and the oats somehow bloated outwards, which meant I had to add lots more milk to get the texture like I'd seen it when J made it.

Unfortunately I ran out of the full-fat milk that K's meant to have in her food and had to resort to semi-skimmed, before I ran out of that too, and got the skimmed out. Of course, what with hunting around in the fridge for milk, it all burnt horribly and even now, as I write this several hours later, the pan is still sitting in the sink, waiting for me to scrub it out.

The quantities came out wrong too, but I've dolloped scoops of the stuff into little plastic boxes and put them in the freezer. K seemed happy enough with what I finally produced for her, though not as ecstatic as I might have hoped given the effort involved. I'm wondering how I can face serving up more of the same frozen gloop. As a Scot, I don't think I have much choice. This is my country's national dish. I shall have to show some Scottish grit and return to the oat face tomorrow.

Posted 23 March 2007 14:12 | Number of comments: 0 | Comments

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PostingOn weaning

"When do you think I'll stop actually making milk?" I ask J, as we discuss plans to wean Katy completely.

"I don't know," he replies. "I have no direct experience of the subject."

Posted 11 March 2007 21:03 | Number of comments: 1 | Comments

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