From a smaller perspective

I take a lot of photos.  A.  Lot.  But other than the occasional selfie, they're pretty much all of other people.  My hubby's pretty good though, when I hand him the camera, he takes great photos for me.  Earlier this year, at Isaac's birthday party, I did just that but boy was I not pleased with the results.  Don't get me wrong, Andy took some lovely shots that captured the day and all the things we got up to.  It was that cuddly mummy I saw wearing my clothes.  I knew that I'd put on weight after my babies; I managed to lose some of it after Anna and then put it back on again once she was breast-feeding less often, and then some more when I was pregnant with Sam.  Something about those photos really brought home to me how much I didn't look like myself and this time, I was going to do something about it.  I was determined that I would take Isaac to school and meet all his new classmates at a weight that felt like me.  Plus, I've always hoped for four children and there was no way I was accumulating more weight with another pregnancy.  I struggled more with Samuel than with the others and I knew that I wouldn't manage all my reponsibilities during a fourth pregnancy without getting healthier.

I started off with an exercise routine that a few of my friends were doing but to be honest, I was in denial about the main cause of my weight; our diet.  A friend had recently posted some amazing photos of her weight loss through Slimming World and I was inspired.   I knew she had a busy family life and worked as well so I thought this might be the way for me.  I do really well when I've got a structure to follow and some accountability.  I've been a member of Weight Watchers in the past and I knew that their point-counting plan wouldn't work with our family routines and meals.

I joined a great group nearby on a Tuesday morning and stood on the scales that first day to find out that I was the largest I have ever been.  I had just been out to buy some size 16 trousers because I had nothing that would fit me.  I dutifully took my measurements and wrote it all down.  I had a dream weight; a number that has always been in my head, that I've never thought I could get back to, based on a photograph when my arms and my face are skinny.

Fast forward 17 weeks and I've done it.  I've hit that target weight and I feel fantastic.  I've been shopping and bought everything in a size 10, knowing that it would fit me when I tried it on.  I own skinny jeans, elegant boat-neck jumpers and clingy t-shirts.  I feel like myself again.  It is awesome.

I can't pretend it's been easy but it hasn't been amazingly hard either.  I just followed the Slimming World plan; loads of fruit and vegetables, lean protein and starchy carbs with enough treats to keep me sane.  I didn't eat white bread for 3 months.  I stopped adding oil to food.  I grill instead of frying.  I bought fun size Milky Ways and sugar free squash.  I rediscovered yoghurt.  The nice thing about the plan for me is that I can see the sound nutritional principles behind it and that it's flexible enough to deal sensibly with breast-feeding (increasing your calcium-rich dairy foods).  I'm trying to find a new balance now, where I can maintain this healthy weight as I adapt to feeding Sam less often and eventually stopping.

I'm so proud of myself for sticking with it and for achieving my goal.  And now, when I hand Andy the camera, I get photos I like looking at!

For the love of family food

While I am a qualified children's doctor, I'm only relating my experiences with my children on this blog. The NHS has plenty of information available for mums and dads in the UK about weaning and other children's health issues.

I'll be honest right off the bat and say that this isn't Sam's first tastes of food. He started with cucumber ten days ago or so and we've just returned from a big family holiday where my mum and my siblings delighted in offering him bits off their plates.  Whenever I recommend baby-led weaning to anyone, their first question is always "what sort of foods do you give him/her?" My answer, whatever we're having, doesn't seem specific enough so I guess this post is me fleshing that out a bit.

When I say 'whatever we're having', I do mean it literally. That did require some changes to what I was cooking at first (more fruit & veg, less salt) but with two children already eating with us four days a week, our family meals are pretty baby-ready these days.

We've literally just got back from a week-long holiday in the Lakes so there's pretty much nothing in our fridge and I had no plan for dinner. That usually means oven-ready food or pasta and sure enough I scavenged up the ingredients for tuna pasta bake. Since the replacements straps and padded insert for the highchair arrived while we were away, there was no reason Sam couldn't join us.

I started off with some pasta and 'bits' in a bowl but he's not quite tall enough to see into it yet so we quickly moved on to using just the tray.

This is a new experience for Sam; it's only the second or third time he's been in a highchair so he has no idea what to expect. He's fed-up! I hand him a single pasta twirl and he takes it to his mouth to suck.

He struggles to pick up the pasta initially and gets frustrated so I pass him pieces of pasta. I also put smallish bits of tuna and sauce on my fingers and offer them to him. He takes the food eagerly and moves it round his mouth. I'm not sure he's swallowed anything yet but he's very happy just 'playing' with the food.

After a little while, maybe 10 minutes, he's getting frustrated with the pasta so I slice a nectarine into quarters and offer him one. Again, he doesn't know what it is or what it's for, so I gently wipe it across his lips. He licks the juice and realises this is good. And then he's off. Nectarine is a winner!  He struggles occasionally to pick up the slippery fruit but for the most part he's doing this all himself.

After finishing most of the nectarine, he goes back to the pasta. Random food combinations are a big feature of BLW; strawberry petit filous and king prawns, anyone?! He's getting the hang of it now and quite confidently brings pasta to his mouth for a suck and a chew. I'm sure I've heard him swallow at some point but I guess we'll know for sure with tomorrow's nappies!

This is all going on during a family meal. We're talking about our favourite parts of our holiday with the children and discussing our upcoming house project. All four of us, the children are great at this, are positive and encouraging to Sam. Lots of smiles and praise for what he's doing. We've also introduced the signs for 'more' and 'finished'; these are the two I found most useful with Isaac at this age. It'll take a while before Sam joins in but the repetition is key to getting it to stick.

A note about the floor; weaning is a messy business. No, sorry, children are a messy business. And never more so than when they eat. Isaac knocked his cup over, spilling his squash. Anna doesn't wear a top whenever we have tomato-based sauces. We have tile flooring that wipes clean beautifully. Usually anything that hits the floor comes straight back into the bowl to be played with/eaten again. But like I said, we've just got home from a week away, leaving the cats in the house and I haven't cleaned the floor yet. Plus tuna and pasta are a pretty good cat-attraction device!

On clean-up; start at the top and work your way down. I wear rubber gloves and remove the food first. I wipe the tray, knocking leftover bits onto the floor mostly. Then I wipe the child and remove bibs or dirty clothing. As it happens, hubby is running a bath so I offloaded Sam to him but if I'm on my own, I get the baby something to do before I carry on. Quite a lot of meals are easier to clean up once they're dry anyway. Then I wipe the highchair from top to bottom, not forgetting the rails on the floor. And finally the floor. I don't generally use disinfectant unless there's some stuck-on mess or it's really gross. Hot soapy water on an e-cloth is enough for me; wearing gloves means I can use really hot dish washing water.

And highchairs? I love our East Coast folding wooden chair. I bought it for Isaac along with a traditional, padded PVC one, which was a nightmare to get clean and went mouldy in storage. I've just ordered a new insert (from Argos but look online for the best price) and new straps (from east coast) and it looks great. The tray lifts over the top so you can sit them right up at the table too. But if I were buying again today, I'd get the ikea highchair. I can almost guarantee you've seen it out & about. A white plastic seat with a removable tray (both dishwasher safe!!) and long grey legs. It's so easy to clean, light and it's only £12 (£16 with the tray)!!

Around our dining room table

One of the memories I want to leave my children is that of sitting around the table as a family, enjoying food and conversation together.  As with seemingly every other aspect of parenting, it turns out that modelling the behaviour you want your children to adopt is the best route to take.  So the best way to teach table manners, healthy food attitudes and good conversational skills is to display them on a regular basis.

Part of our weaning strategy (if you can call it that) is having the children sit at the table as part of the family.  It feels awkward at first, to try and make conversation with a toddler while still maintaining some semblence of order.  Every day we ask the same question and let that lead us into a conversation.  "How was your day?"

It feels daft to ask a toddler what they did that day and what their favourite part was.  Especially when you then use closed questions to get them to tell you something you already know.  "Tell Daddy what you saw in the carpark."

But it's paying off, because now, the three year old is asking us how our day was.  And the two year old copies her brother.  And we're actually having a conversation.

On the stovetop*

I love the smell of risotto cooking on the hob. First it's butter melting, then garlic & onions, filling the house with their mouth-watering aromas. Splash in some wine, only the good stuff, something worth drinking with the meal, and the snapping, hissing as it hits the hot pan causes heady vapours to rise.

The next part, the slow part, the therapeutic part. It all melds together; butter, onions, wine & stock. Good food that takes time and patience. A little more stock, stir the pot. Turn the heat down, too much bubbling. Turn the heat up, we do want some bubbles after all! (I'm by no means an expert).

Then, at last, cheese and more butter, meltingly good. I didn't say it was healthy! But maybe it's good for you all the same.


I've missed my cooking these last couple of months. My work schedule has been hectic, nothing new there. But we've had an added complication:

Thankfully the "morning" sickness seems to be dying down so there might be a bit more cooking and maybe some more posting coming up. You never know!
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Silent Sunday

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On my kitchen wishlist

When my lovely friend Leanne first posted her kitchen wishlist and challenged me to do the same, my immediate thought was "but I haven't got anything on my wishlist"!

Chocolate and cherry brownies

Tenderstem and Cambazola tarts (easiest tart ever!)

I really enjoy cooking and don't tend to be intimidated by anything.  If there's a recipe that catches my eye then I'll give it a go.  Cooking, especially baking, is a lot like chemistry; if you add the right ingredients in the correct proportions and carry out the proper processes, you'll end up with the intended result.  Most of the time anyway!!

Mars Bar brownies - I have Leanne to thank for this one too!

But as I thought about it, I realised there are a few bits and pieces that I'd love to cook but I've never really made time for.

These profiteroles from the Good Food Magazine look really yummy.  My mum makes a mean chocolate profiterole so it would take something special for me to deviate from that tried and true combination!

A couple of friends were talking about baking bread on instagram the other day and the finished loaves make me want to start making my own bread again!  We have a breadmaker and at one point I hit on a combination of ingredients and programme that made an almost perfect loaf.  But two kids later, we're out of the habit and I'd love to try an oven-baked loaf, prepared in the breadmaker.  I'm happy to let a machine do the hard work of kneading and rising!!

I bought a bundt tin earlier this year, intending to make some of the delicious-looking ring cakes in the original Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook but so far I've been scared off by the huge quantities of eggs and butter in the recipes.  Maybe the blueberry cake would be perfect for a bake to take to work, Andy's not a fan of blueberries.

And then I have a stack of recipe books with dozens of recipes I'd like to try!  There aren't enough meals in the day!