Lullabies and the beginning

In the early weeks of my son's life I used to play him a particular lullaby off youtube.  When I knew the melody and the lyrics by heart I just sang and hummed it to him at bedtime. Just a few weeks back I finally purchased the song, and I played the lullaby at bedtime for the first time since his birth. I wasn't prepared for what happened. A wave of emotion came over me. Feelings came flooding over me with with such a force that I was worried I would drown in the undercurrents, memories so clear as if I was there all over again. I had tears well up in my eyes, and my throat closed so tight I was unable to hum along the gentle lullaby. Hearing the guitar of the lullaby, the lovely melody, the beautiful voice shot me back to the beginning.  All of a sudden it was 2am in the morning, I was back in my London house in the bedroom, my not even a week old newborn was crying and crying and crying and I didn't know what to do, and I played him this song over and over again. 

asleep, finally

I don't talk much about the early days and weeks any more. Perhaps because now everything is better. Everything is good. Perhaps because now I like being a mother. It wasn't like this in the start. The early weeks were hard. And when I say hard, I mean that they almost broke me, they almost broke my husband and at some points I was sure they were going to break us as a couple. The only one who was fine was our monkey, who was hopefully quite unaware (yes I know they pick up more than we think) of the desperation and unhappiness around him.

But back to the beginning. 

I loved my pregnancy. I had an amazing pregnancy. I was happy no matter how many stupid comments about the coming lack of sleep got thrown at me. I ignored my brother in laws' comments of "your life is about to end", and chose to just smile when people commented on how huge or how tiny they thought my bump looked. I read lots of books about pregnancy and birth, I went to pregnancy yoga, I met other moms to be and attended prenatal group classes at the nct. I couldn't wait to meet our son, I was fevering towards the big day.

And then he was born. He was cute, all wrinkled up, tiny, brand new. After only one night at the hospital we couldn't wait to get home and just be us.

But boy was I not prepared for the coming weeks. The lack of sleep. The screaming. The helplessness on my part. The sheer exhaustion. The hormone crash. 

I knew about the odds of baby blues or post natal depression. At the birth prep classes we were told that not all fathers (or mothers!) bonded right away. That some babies can't breastfeed because of tongue tie. That such a thing like colic existed. Also that baby may think it's daytime in the night and vice versa. What we didn't know was that we got dealt almost all of the above. Thank you.

The first few days our son just screamed and screamed, and was awake until about 2 or 3 in the mornings… When he was finally asleep I was restless, worried, exhausted but too wired to sleep properly. All these noises he made. Was he ok, was he sleeping, did he need feeding again, was it x amount of time since the last feed? Three days into our new life, and I was ready to confess to anything, as long as I could just sleep. I understood how torture works. Just. Make. It. Stop.  "Oh just sleep when the baby sleeps". Yeah, about that… he didn't sleep much during the day either. When he did actually sleep during the day time, he slept on me and I was unable to sleep myself. 

The sheer exhaustion of the early days dragged on, and it became weeks. I was so utterly utterly tired, I was in constant tears. I wondered what I had done to our life. My wish for a family had gotten us where exactly? Here? This is what I had wanted? Really? "Just get through the first six weeks and it will get easier". I wasn't sure what to make of that. Was that actually helpful? I hadn't wanted a family to "just get through it", to wish weeks of my life away. At the rate it was going I wasn't even going to make it past the first six weeks. Nor was my husband. He was struggling and fighting his own battles, plus he didn't enjoy seeing me reduced to a lump of desperation, unhappiness and tears. All I could see in front of me was neverending cycles of feed, burp, nappy change and crying. I felt dread. 

What didn't help was that neither of us had that amazing overwhelming love that you read about. Where was that? Hadn't I been promised these amazing hormones if I went through a drug free natural birth, as I had done? Where was my high? My mother love? You read about men not bonding right away, but you feel like a failure if you're the mother and it's not happening for you. I felt cheated. I felt like life was playing a massive joke on me. How had I thought that I could have it all? The amazing husband, the enjoyable life, good health, a nice home to live in. And a baby. If someone had come to my door at day 10 post birth, and had said "thanks for looking after this child for the past week and a half, we will now be giving it back to its real mother" I wouldn't have been surprised. He just didn't feel like my son. Don't get me wrong, I adored him, and despite the crying he was super cute, but was this MY son? MY baby? I had expected it to feel different. Like in the movies. In fact, I felt like I was in the completely wrong cinema theatre, and this wasn't my movie being played. I felt like living someone else's life. Where was I? Where was my husband? Where were we? What had become of my lovely lovely life?

Despite the exhaustion and the lack of feeling a bond, I was determined to breastfeed. It was so frustrating when it didn't happen naturally. It turned out that the monkey also had a 80% tongue tie, which explained the unsuccessful hours long feeding attempts. The midwives were amazing, sitting with me, helping me, hand expressing with me. Hubby went out to get nipple shields, breast pads and anything else breastfeeding related. The nipple shields saved the day, and the breastfeeding. Five days after his birth the tongue tie got clipped. It took a further 4 weeks of twice daily massage of the frenulum to make sure the tongue tie was properly gone. And it wasn't until he was four or even five months old that he managed to latch without the shields. I fought hard for breastfeeding. So so hard. It took patience and determination. And again I didn't experience the amazing bond between mother and child that women talk about when breastfeeding. 

I couldn't eat quick enough, that's how hungry I was. Breastfeeding did indeed take a lot of energy. Being unhappy and distressed takes a lot of energy. I lost weight rapidly. I looked grey in the face. I threw away all of the congratulations cards "to the happy family". We weren't happy. We were drowning. I was worried about us. I couldn't see us being happy again. This wasn't the life I wanted to lead. 

the cutest living being

I carried my heart on my sleeve. Perhaps because I simply couldn't keep it together. I broke into tears with the midwives. I broke into tears at the breastfeeding cafes, I broke into tears with the NCT mothers. I did a lot of crying those early weeks and months. 

Of course my friends were there for me (day as well as nights!) and I ended finding out a lot about what other friends had gone through… But help also came from the most unexpected corners….

I had been active in a pregnancy forum, and our "birth club" had moved into the parent forum. After a while of absence I got a few private messages (and one forum member in particular sent a phone message) asking what had become of the happy mummy-to-be? Was everything alright? Were we ok? I told the truth. I said that we weren't ok. I got messages of support, women let me in on their own struggles. They, too, felt scared to leave the house with a screaming baby. They, too, didn't know what to do all day with the infant. They, too, were insecure. – I also got lots of practical advice of one mum of two, about sleeping, about dealing with the screaming and much more - never patronising, always with kindness and humour. From those first desperate (on my part) exchanges via whats app messages a wonderful friendship started to develop. It was ok to not know. It was ok to be weak. It was ok to be honest. 

Another piece of rope was thrown to me by the family photographer I had hired for a bump-to-baby photo shoot package. The thought of a happy family shoot when I felt (and looked) like **** and when clearly we were anything but a unit, made me cancel the newborn shoot. I told her things weren't going great and that I would like to postpone for a bit, or perhaps cancel all together. She was amazing. Emailed me to check if I was ok, she told me about herself and the early weeks of her two children, gave me practical non-patronising advice. She really didn't have to, she could have just said "ok, no problem", but she reached out to me. I was gratful, even if I wasn't able to put it into words just yet. 

9 weeks young

My wonderful midwife told me that she herself didn't bond with her first child right away. That she didn't feel like her daughter for quite a while. That she had felt the same dread I was feeling now, worrying if it will go on and on and on like this for ever. One of my friends came to visit and literally held my hand for 12 hours while I was sobbing my heart out. One of my NCT girls in particular was always there for me, listening to me when yet again I had tears welling up in my eyes, telling me that it will be ok. 

Then there were the many little things. A comforting hand on my shoulder at the breastfeeding cafe. A knowing look in a cafe that told me that it's ok, and that she had been there too. A neighbour telling me that she did not enjoy the first few months. A down to the ground honest email exchange with a friend all the way around the other end of the globe showed me that I wasn't alone. Another friend reporting that she also didn't bond right away. Yet another telling me that her husband didn't really want anything to do with the baby for months and months. I realised that I wasn't alone. That how I felt wasn't anywhere near as uncommon as I had thought it was. 

I carried my (crying) baby with me everywhere. I let him sleep on me, next to me. The first smiles appeared. I breastfed on demand. Eventually the crying got a bit less and the day-night reversal lay in the past. I held him, sang to him, kissed him. I started to get to know my baby. He started feeling like my baby. The seasons were changing and I took him out for walks to see the trees, the skies. I had stopped losing weight and I also got my appetite back. Over time I started feeling better. I continued going to cafes, let the Monkey see people, let him smell the air. The love grew. The breastfeeding got easier and I even enjoyed it. I wasn't scared to be alone with him. The love grew more. I started smiling again - just to myself (not just for him). Meeting my other new mothers I could hold a conversation without starting to cry. My lovely photographer finally came back to take those baby shots, and they felt good and look great. Hubby and I shared our first proper silly laughs and started feeling like us again. The father and son bond also slowly started forming. The seasons started to change again. I became more confident. I was happy again. We were happy again. 

The Monkey is such a happy and content little boy, it always amazes me just how good natured and patient he is. It gives me hope that even though I wasn't able to give him ALL my love in the beginning, I was still always there for him, kissing his little head, whispering into his little ears. And when I wake up to that smile, when I feel those little arms tightly wrapped around me, when I hear his laugh, it is hard to imagine that I ever felt different. The lullaby in the evenings no longer catapults me back in time, but it will still always be a reminder.

I had to let go of everything I knew and everything that I thought that I knew. I had to accept this massive change in my life and let go of the illusion of being in control. I had to be open for what was there now and accept impermanence. I had to surrender. And so I did. Initially it felt like giving up. Then it felt like a gift. 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder - we're back!

Lots to tell...

Yes, we've been offline for a whole two months and not posted much. Lots has happened. Here a recap...

From Christmas right through to the end of April the three of us caught one bug after the other. Quite frankly it's been exhausting. I always thought people were exaggerating when they warned us about the neverending bugs. But they were right, sadly. 

So we took our lovely trip to London, which we had long been looking forward to. Prior to the holiday the Monkey already had slightly rosy cheeks. These stayed the whole trip while we were away. After five days of play and exploration in London, he came down with a high fever. The GP thought it was just a little cold - despite the big red cheeks, which should have been a tell-all. Back on Tenerife Island the paediatrician took one look and diagnosed Slapped Cheek Syndrome.

Slapped Cheek Syndrome

The biggest one the Monkey had caught was slapped cheek syndrome, also called fifth disease. He looked like such a sorry little thing. It started with little rash-like bubbles, then developed into full blown red cheecks, followed by gunky eyes and a rash all over his body...

Slapped Cheek Syndrome

Here taken from the NHS website, all about slapped cheeck:

Slapped cheek syndrome (also known as “fifth disease” or erythema infectiosum) is a type of viral infection that is most common in children, although it can affect anyone of any age.

Slapped cheek syndrome usually affects children aged between six and 10 years. Most cases develop during the late winter months or early spring.

Gunky eyes, rosy cheeks

In children, the most common symptom is the appearance of a distinctive bright red rash on the cheeks. This is how the condition got its name.

Although many symptoms of slapped cheek syndrome are similar to other conditions, most cases can be diagnosed by examining the rash. Usually, no further testing is necessary in children.

Read more information about the symptoms of slapped cheek syndrome.

What treatment will my child need?

Most children will not need treatment as slapped cheek syndrome is usually a very mild condition that passes in a few days. Occasionally it can last up to four or five weeks.

There is no specific antiviral therapy available for slapped cheek syndrome.

Symptoms such as headaches, high temperature or itchy skin can usually be treated with over-the-counter medications such as paracetamol and antihistamines.

Adults, especially women, who frequently develop joint pain with or without a skin rash, can use non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) as painkillers.

You will probably only need to contact your GP if one or both of the following occurs:

• your (or your child’s) temperature rises to 39C or above

• your (or your child’s) symptoms suddenly worsen

What are the causes of slapped cheek syndrome?

Slapped cheek syndrome is caused by a virus called parvovirus B19. Parvovirus B19 is an airborne virus spread in much the same way as the cold or flu viruses. It can be spread through coughs and sneezes that release tiny droplets of contaminated saliva which are then breathed in by another person.

It's very difficult to prevent the spread of the virus as people are most contagious before their symptoms begin, so they are unaware they are infected.

Once you've been infected you should develop a lifelong immunity and not experience any further symptoms.

Tonsillitis

I am not joking, once we had Slapped Cheek over and done with the Monkey and myself got tonsillitis. Again a really high fever - 39.9, which we treated with paracetamol and ibuprophen. Alternating between the two, we gave a dose every 4 hours for almost two full days. I got the tonsillitis myself, my first one since childhood, and it wasn't fun. Rarely has anything floored me like these two weeks of high fevers, feeling unwell and not being able to eat or drink.

Moving on

But the good news is, we have been disease free for almost three weeks and these three weeks have been such a pleasure! The monkey, who is usually quite chilled anyway, was just so so happy for the first time in months. He is always happy, but this was him being ecstatic and full of energy! We love it.

Where we are at

Walking
Now at almost 15 months, this is where we are at with the Monkey's development. He finally started walking at 15 months and 5 days. Quite at the late end of normal. I wasn't overly worried about him not walking yet, still, I was happy to read a very interesting article on Dr Sears website, which can be found here. It was lovely to read that late walking does have advantages too. Mellow and social hits the nail on the head with our veggie toddler.

"Babies with easier, more laid-back temperaments tend to be later in motor-development skills, such as sitting up, crawling, and walking, but earlier in social skills, such as engaging behaviors like making eye-to-eye contact with people. Mellow babies are more content looking and playing rather than getting up and going. These babies approach changes in motor milestones more cautiously. Late crawlers and walkers tend to be less accident-prone." quoted from the Dr Sears website.

Talking

Our son doesn't say that many words just yet. He says "mih" for the German word Milch, other than that he is sticking to baby babble. Mama and Dada, Nana, something that we believe is an attempt at Granddad. But not too many clear ones. I need to point out again that I speak only German with him, while hubby speaks just English. At nursery, which he goes to for 3x3h a week, he only gets spoken to in Spanish.

Signing

We had started to sign with him very early, at about five months old. I had read quite a lot about language development and signing supporting that development. However, he never seemed particularly interested in signing. We recently started using the signs for Bath, Milk, More, Play, All Gone, Eat/Food, Drink, Yummy and Sleep again. And Voila! He is using all of them. It has been amazing being able to communicate. Sure, before he managed to point at things, which meant that he wanted them. But to be able to communicate: More when we are playing, or eating, is fantastic. Even the English grandparents don't have to get stressed at interpreting "words" which he may be saying in German. 

Play

Everything is interesting. From animals, to boxes, from little dinosaur figures to books. It's all on. Running around, throwing a ball, stomping feet, "dancing", pointing... it's all one big playground out there. Water is still high on the favourite list with the local waterpark the highlight. Never have I seen him more excited than at the last waterpark trip.

Nursery

Separation anxiety is finally behind us. Sure there are days where Mama is the best, but then there are days where anything goes. He is happy at nursery, no crying when I leave him, he is happy with his grandparents and he is happy in playgroup, only refuelling on a hug every once in a while.

In other news

The veggie family just got news that our permanent residency visa for Australia got approved. That's right, Australia. We will be moving over there early 2015. You can see why we've not been posting much. It's been quite a few months. We're thrilled, to say the least, and have started planning our double move from Tenerife, to the UK, to Australia. Exciting times.

Separation anxiety

In the last few weeks our son seems to have been struck with separation anxiety. Unfortunately this started just a couple of weeks prior to him starting nursery two afternoons a week, which made the adjustment period a little more tearful than we had hoped for.

Apparently it isn't unusual that babies who have not had any stranger or separation anxiety previously, still do get it, even at a much later stage. For the monkey it is now. He doesn't like me leaving the room, or being out of sight. On his explores he comes back for little pitstops much more often, refilling on a hug, refuelling on a kiss.

Because he's been sick with a nasty cough for the last 2.5 weeks and then caught himself a nice virus on top of the cough, he has been more clingy than ever. The last four days I have had him attached to me more or less constantly. At night he rolls himself right next to me, wrapping his little arms tightly around my arm. During the day he seems to turn into a jojo: up, down, up down - he doesn't seem to be able to make up his mind what he wants. There have been lots of tears. I do feel for him, being little and ill, not being able to put how he feels into more than just big crocodile tears.

He needs reassurance and he needs lots of hugs and comfort. And of course he gets all of that, in abundance. Even if it means burning our food for lack of free hands.

Veggie Sausages

These are lovely veggie sausages and tasted really yummy. The recipe is for 8 sausages and takes about 45 minutes - taken from Annabel Karmels wesite here.  I was impressed how easy they were.

Ingredients:

• 175g sliced white bread
• 25g butter
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 175g courgette, grated
• 150g Cheddar cheese, grated
• 1 egg, separated
• a little salt and pepper
• vegetable oil for frying
• flour for your hands

Method:

Tear the bread into small pieces and shred them in a food processor or with a blending stick in the little "herb blender" until they become fluffy bread crumbs. Try and squeeze as much liquid out of the grated courgette as possible (it will make the courgette look rather squashed). 

Melt the butter in a frying pan and saute the onion until soft. Add the grated courgette and cook for roughly 3 minutes or until soft.

Add the graded cheese and 3/4 of the bread crumbs and mix the egg yolk and salt and pepper under. 

The mix will be quite hot so you may need to wait a little bit until you can shape it into 8 sausages. Best way to do it is flour your hands before trying to shape them. Either dip them into the whipped white of the egg or use a brush to coat the sausages in the lightly beaten egg. 

Roll each sausage into the bread crumbs (I had to really press them on, they wouldn't just stick). Fry in a frying pan until nice and golden. 

According to Annabel Karmel's recipe these only take 7 minutes to prep and 17 to make. However, I found that unless you're master chef quick with grating cheese, courgette and whipping all the ingredients out of the cupboard in no time, it takes closer to 45 minutes by the time you'll be serving them.

Our sausages vs Annabel Karmel sausages. I need a little more practice but think I did ok

We all enjoyed the vegetarian sausages as a family meal and I will definitely cook them again. If I were to change anything I would use less cheese (although the cheese binds the ingredients as much as the egg), and even add more little bits like sweet corn or tiny bits of red pepper. Time to experiment!

"Baby-tax"

It is a beautiful thing to see a young child enjoying their food. We have our ups and downs when it comes to our Monkey's enthusiasm for eating. I blame it partially on teething, because surely it couldn't possibly be our cooking ;) So it's always a pleasure to see that little mouth open wide, that noodle being sucked in, those hands shove a stray piece of veg back in.

What give us little giggles is seeing our son speed-crawl across the room when he sees us eat something. He is coming to claim his baby-tax. Nowadays there is no chance of us eating anything without paying the baby-tax. Sometimes it is just a small bite size tax. Sometimes it's a hefty 50% claim we have to satisfy. But we don't mind, we like to share.

Left over pasta, eating standing up in the kitchen (it didn't go unnoticed!)

On the downside it means we have to be careful what, when and how we eat. Grabbing a quick bite while standing up, before we pop out...what message will that send? - that food is a quick fast commodity? What about a sneaky piece of chocolate? - admittedly we're actually rather good when it comes to chocolate (or other sweets) and rarely have them in the house. Either way, it goes to show that we can't get away with bad eating habits and that we need to fix them now. After all we need to lead by example and I would like food to be special and meal times to be a family affair (without TV but rather talking about our days and listening to each other).

Bon appetit!

Semolina porridge

The veggie toddler is on food strike. Perhaps it is the increasing amount of teeth that seem to be sprouting in his mouth, or perhaps he is getting a cold and can't taste too well. Whatever it is, it is frustrating. Food lands on the floor, gets spit out, gets thrown. Since I feel slightly disheartened that he won't even eat his usually favourite Sweet Potato, Pea, Spinach dish, I will just add a little recipe for my own breakfast porridge. No point posting about lovely food we cooked, only to show you pictures of it on the floor.

Ever since I have traveled to Nepal many many moons ago, before the Annapurna track had roads going through it (so I am told), I have been in love with semolina porridge. It's so simple, quick and yummy.

Ingredients:
1 cup milk (almond, soya, rice - your choice)
1/4 cup of coarse semolina
Sweeten to taste with: maple syrup / brown sugar / honey
Optional: handful of: raisings / blueberries / one sliced banana / strawberries (go wild!)

Recipe:
Warm the milk, stir in the semolina until it thickens. If I am adding dried fruit I like to stir in in with the semolina so it softens and warms. If I add fresh fruit I add it at the end, once the semolina has thickened. Add an extra splash of milk if the semolina has set. Sweeten with your choice of sweetness. Enjoy!

Yumy semolina porridge with raisins and maple syrup

Veggie Rissoles

by Anna
cooked by Anna and Jaime

Boy these were yummy little things! Highly recommended.

Another recipe  taken from The complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner. 

These were great. Not only did they actually turn out like the recipe suggested, they were also a fab finger food for the wee vegetarian. It actually kills me not posting the recipe....

On her website I found a veggie burger recipe which isn't all too different from the rissoles. I will try it next week.

Rissoles with salad

Language development

Dadadaaaa 

This is particularly interesting to us because currently we have three languages in our environment. It might mean that the babbling phase may be a little delayed. When I wrote in an earlier post that the Monkey isn't saying individual words yet, and in fact seems to have regressed slightly, I am aware that multilingualism is most likely the cause for this. Although of course I would prefer seeing some sort of verbal communication develop, I appreciate that it is a lot to take in.

At home we speak German and English. Our environment is Spanish speaking, which is becoming even more relevant now that our son is going to nursery two afternoons a week. This is bound to cause some confusion at some point. But we are using the One Person One Language (OPOL) approach, and I feel confident that, with time, our Monkey will work out which sounds belong to which language. 

I do find it fascinating to see that he can understand "Give this to Papa" and "Gib' es der Mama". It will be interesting to see which languages will stick. A child, so I have read, may go the way of least resistance with his language. So he may well end up speaking Spanish and English, with German being the minority language. 

Because I enjoy reading, the following books are currently spread around the house, so I can sneak in a quick read at nap time or in the evenings. Be Bilingual by Annika Bourgogne is, so far, an interesting read. She explains how it works in her family, but also references other books and research. I quite like her practical tips, and look forward to trying them out over the following years.

Another interesting book although it feels not quite as scientific as I would like, is Small Talk by Nocpla Lathey and Tracey Blake. The author is a speech therapist and draws on years worth of experience which means that there are plenty of case studies and examples. Her practical ideas on language development are really easy to integrate into the day.

I appreciate that it may not be as easy as I envision it now.... But whatever happens, our son has the amazing opportunity to be exposed to several languages and this in itself will help language acquisition even at a later stage.

If you're raising your child bilingual, let us know your thoughts and tips. It would be fantastic to hear of other families' bilingual journeys.

Vegan Daal

by Anna 
Recipe by Jaime

We eat a lot of lentils at home and now that our son is keener than ever to eat exactly what we eat, it is time to start cooking baby friendly family meals. Nice and healthy, chunky but not too chunky...

Vegan Daal

Ingredients for 4 adult size portions:

200g red lentils (soaked over night)

1 red pepper/capsicum

1 leek

1 carrot

1 can of coconut milk = 400ml

1 tsp of coconut oil

1 tsp of cumin

1 tsp of vegetable stock (dried)

1 tsp of curry powder

4 tsp tomato puree

(chunk of ginger optional)

To have with

quinoa, couscous or rice (cook according to pack instructions)

This is how it's done:

Soak 200g of red lentils over night then cook for about an hour or so with a chunk of ginger (supposed to help make lentils less gassy)

Steam: the pepper, leek and carrot (carrot takes the longest so it's worth steaming that one first) until medium oft.

Once all soft move into a pot and pour in coconut milk. Add the the cococnut oil, cumin, veg stock and curry powder and finally the red lentils. Add the tomato puree.

After cooking for about 20 mins blend on a rough blend (or a fine blend if your little one is still on purée).

We had it with mixed quinoa (white and black) and it all was received rather well. 

Where we are at

by Anna

1 year review

It was time for the one year review and I am happy to say that the Monkey passed with flying colours. Here are the measurments:

Head circumference 49cm = 96th centile (wow big head!)
Height 79cm (although he did wriggle a lot, so this might not be 100% accurate) = 89th centile
Weight 10.46kg = 75th centile

Amongst other things – development and milestones

Since we are slowly expanding the blog and won't be writing just about food any more, but also parenting topics, developmental milestones and the likes, I thought I share with you a little bit more where we are at...

Milestones are a hot topic with new parents, and there can be a lot of boasting how amazing one's child is. Some are already walking at nine months (admittedly I have seen one such child), others are (according to their parents) already using enough words to explain quantum physics. 

We all know that every child learns in its own pace. And the child that is walking early may not be too bothered about other things, and vice versa. Our monkey is definitely not a child prodigy, nor particularly fast with any of the developmental milestones. Does it bother us? No. We think he is doing just fine.

At 12 months and 2 weeks our almost-toddler's development

What he is doing (amongst others)

• stacking Ikea wooden stacking rings (started this two weeks ago)

• putting lids on things, including lipstick caps (started this at roughly 11.5 months?)

• cruising like no man's business (been doing this for a fair while, without bothering to progress to walking)

• crawls like attempting to break a world record for speediness (he dragged himself for a long long time before starting to properly crawl at 10.5 months or thereabouts)

• feeding himself more or less successfully (by which I mean, only half goes on the floor)

What he doesn't yet do (yet)

• say individual words (in fact he has regressed from mama to daaaaaaaa for everything - but since he has three languages in his environment this is probably not surprising)

• walk (although he has just three days ago attempted his first step, purely by accident, and he does enjoy pushing the high chair through our living room)

• stand freely by himself

• quite understand the very cool Bobby Car he got from his grandparents for his birthday

He loves:

• music and jumping up and down in our arms "dancing"

• "stroking" the cat

• splashing with water no matter how big or small the container

• tactility games and songs like: Wind the bobbin up, Row Row Row the boat

• playing peek a boo – it is still the most entertaining game at this point

• pointing my finger to illustrations in books for me to name them


So you see... Every child is so different. I think what is most important is to enjoy the journey. This first year has already fled by.  I am happy we are not wishing it away by wanting our Monkey to do things he isn't ready for.

Clever Baby

by Anna

Now that I titled this post "Clever Baby" I realised we didn't really have an awful lot of foresight calling this blog the Veggie baby, baby blog given that we are almost approaching toddler age... Oh well. To us he will always be our baby. And the blog is our little project, so perhaps also our baby.

Anyhow, back to clever baby business.

No need to point out that babies' brains grow at a silly rate, particularly these first few years. So how can we make sure our veggie almost-toddler gets what he needs? Omega is a substantial support for growing brain cells. Read more about it here. And who doesn't want to have a clever baby? Luckily nowadays there is a whole wide range of vegetarian products out there which we can fall back on if our foods don't have quite enough of what we need.

Vegetarian DHA oil

We started using Nordic Naturals Baby DHA oil. It's easy to administer, simply by dropping it onto a spoonful of food, or emptying the dropper onto the prepared food and mix it under. Be sure to not have the food too hot before mixing the oil in, you don't want to kill the supplement (nor the vitamins in the actual prepared food).

Luckily our Monkey is fascinated by the dropper. He seems to almost enjoy his food more when we put a few drops onto the spoon, feed him (or let him feed himself) and repeat the process until we have given him the two recommended droppers.

Admittedly we often forget. It's definitely not a daily supplement in our house. However, we feel that he gets a fair amount of DHA with linseed. Giving him the oil only every other day seems to work fine for us.

Dropper in, dropper out, dropper in, dropper out....

And given that the Monkey has beenworking out how to put the dropper back into the little bottle and how to put lids on top of little cups for a while now, we think the DHA oil is indeed a clever little addition to his food.

Playing with lids, spoons and anything else within reach

A big roar goes to....

Lion Cake

Unbelievable but true. A whole year has passed. The veggie baby is now a veggie toddler (although walking isn't quite on the horizon just yet).

To celebrate I made a cake. Our Monkey loves lions, so what better to bake than a lion cake?

Sketching a rough

I tried a couple of recipes since I didn't want to find out the night before the big day, that the recipe wasn't working. Because I had never used fondant, I had a play... Let's call it a sketch!

Easy Vanilla Cake

I finally decided on the "Easy Vanilla Cake" recipe found here on the BBC Good Food website. The cake tastes delicious and it nice and fuffy.

Ingredients are:
    •    250g pack unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
    •    250g golden caster sugar
    •    seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod or 1 tsp vanilla paste
    •    5 large eggs, cracked into a jug
    •    85g plain flour
    •    100g full-fat Greek yogurt (I used Total)
    •    250g self-raising flour
    •    3 tbsp semi-skimmed milk

Fluffy dough

Method:

Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Grease a round, deep 20cm tin, then line the base and sides with non-stick baking paper.

Using electric beaters or a tabletop mixer, beat the butter, sugar, vanilla and ¼ tsp salt together until pale and fluffy, then pour in the eggs, one at a time, giving the mix a really good beating before adding the next. Add 1 tbsp of the plain flour if the mix starts to look slimy rather than fluffy. Beat in the yogurt.

Mix the flours; then, using a large metal spoon, fold them into the batter, followed by the milk. Spoon the mix into the tin and bake for about 35 minutes or until well risen and golden – a skewer inserted into the middle should come out clean.

Everything went nice and smoothly, I even had the monkey help me put the flour into the mixture. Sadly once transferred into the tin, and lifting off to place into the oven, the bottom of the cheap cake tin came dislodged and plonked onto the floor. Very disappointing. So I had to start from scratch. The second attempt went smoothly without any disasters.

Decorating

Once the cake had cooled down it was time to decorate. Now, I do love making a cake, but decorating it hasn't yet been a big thing for me. Partially because I personally don't want to have a ton of sugar and extra calories in/on my cake. But since this is a 1st Birthday Cake I thought: let's go to town!

decorating the Lion Cake

Ready, set, go! I had drawn a little sketch on how I wanted it to look like, and so I started rolling out the sugar fondant.

Once the yellow and white pieces of fondant were in place, I added chocolate icing for the details of the mane, eyes and mouth area.

Looking more and more like a Lion Cake

Here the final Lion Cake in all its "glory". I suppose a real cake maker would laugh at my child-like cake decoration, but I am proud as punch. Rrrrraaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr.

1st birthday cake: Lion Cake

Happy 1st Birthday Veggie Baby!!

It takes guts (flora)!

Posted by: Jaime 

Towards the end of 2013 I started taking an interest in gut flora and its relationship to general health (mainly due to the fact that my skin has never been great and I want to finally get to the bottom of what is causing it). But when the Monkey got put on a course of antibiotics to clear up what the hospital thought was an infection (it wasn’t, it was a stomach virus), and already knowing antibiotics weren’t great for gut flora, we had to do some extra research to find out how we could help his gut flora recover.

Now, I’m really no expert and still learning about the subject myself, but very basically gut flora is very important for human health, especially in relation to autoimmune diseases, and antibiotics can have a serious impact on gut flora and, therefore, a person's health.

Avocado yogurt with extra probiotics

‘By altering the gut microbiota, and thus the immune system very early in life, the antibiotics could negatively influence long-term health, particularly by boosting the risk of developing asthma, allergy, and obesity, according to the report. The risk is heightened by the fact that the antibiotic-driven disruption of the microbiota comes at a time "when this population is in rapid flux and can easily be unbalanced," according to the report.’

(Source)

(To avoid me essentially rewriting information from people far more in the know than I, there is a whole host of information online explaining this subject, including here, here and here, with a very recent one here)

So, what to do? Thankfully our good doctor prescribed some probiotics drops straight away, and we have decided to continue adding probiotics to the Veggie Baby's diet for the foreseeable future. We are currently trying ‘Udo`s Choice Infant`s Blend Microbiotics’, although with the package having only just arrived we are too early to say if the Veggie Baby will take to this being added to his juice/milk/yogurt.

In the long term I am hoping to introduce more cultured and fermented foods into our diet, so we are not supplement dependent. This is my bible on fermentation and I’m sure that I'll have my head buried in for some time to come!

(Some great articles on fermentation and gut flora here and here)

NB – We are not signed up to affiliate marketing of any product/site and so all links are for information purposes only; we receive no financial reward for recommending anything.

A long two weeks

Being ill isn't fun at the best of times. Let alone when you're only eleven months old and can't really say what's wrong. A tough tummy bug meant flat out food refusal. Milk was all that may or may not be accepted.

But after various doctors visits, and different meds, there seems to be an improvement.

The Monkey is still taking probiotic drops (will add a section in links and resources with names and photos soon) and we have also ordered some further probiotics for longterm usage. Hopefully his gut flora can soon be flourishing again and keep him a healthy little thing.

At the height of his tummy bug the only thing he did like eating were these: Mogli Pizza Sticks. Strictly speaking they are probably only from 12+ months, but we were happy for him to munch on anything at all.

organic pizza sticks

Weightloss

The last weighing at the doctors showed that he had lost weight. Only 270grams, but given that the last weighing had been a month prior (and therefor he would have weighed a fair amount more already) it probably added up to a good half kilo. Not good. He is down to the 63rd percentile.

Fattening the baby

Whenever we can we mix some avocado under or add extra baby rice / millet etc under his yoghurt. At the moment we go by: 'anything goes' and he gets what he wants. Luckily we still count some greens to what he does eat.

Mixed berries and yoghurt

On the road to recovery

With the Monkey getting better he is also starting to get his appetite back. What a happy sight! After lots of listless lying around on the floor it is great seeing our veggie baby back to goofing around with his plate.

We made scrambled tofu. Although I had a recipe I just went freestyle with the amounts. I knew he wouldn't eat a whole portion so just made it a rough size: some silken tofu (squeeze the water out as much as you can). Some green asparagus tips (ours were from frozen), a pinch of turmeric (meant to be anti inflammatory), a teeeeny bit of salt, olive oil, and (although this makes an otherwise vegan recipe vegetarian) a dollop of cream cheese. You can add whatever else feels nice: onion, perhaps a little bit of leek...

What a relief when he ate. And eat he did. He messed, he played, it went into his mouth, it got chewed and swallowed.

the veggie baby is BACK!

Let's hope we are now on the road to recovery and can get back to cooking.

We are extending the blog

Having a sick child made us think about lots of things, from food to co-sleeping to general child rearing questions. Plus a few of my friends are currently pregnant with their first child and don't quite know how to start easing into the topic of having a family. They asked for advice on what worked for us and what didn't. And although we are very aware that child rearing is a hugely personal journey,and unsolicited advice is the most annoying thing that comes with having children, if anything we have learned can be helpful then we are happy to share.

So, we may start using this blog to share more of our experiences, more of which products we found useful (from probiotics to good nappy creams), which books we have read (nutrition but also about babies and general tips) and so on.

Not a yummy tummy

Our Monkey is still feeling poorly. Day five and counting. Needless to say we've not been cooking or adding anything new to the recipe list, hence a slight absence of photos. By now we know we're dealing with a viral infection rather than a bacterial one, which means we can stop giving him antibiotics. Fingers crossed with lots of probiotics and nice yogurt we will soon be able to build up some strength again in our veggie baby's tummy and gut.

More soon.