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!