I heart couscous!
The couscous beard.
More please!
The monster strikes again....
31.1.11
Love Monday's - the couscous monster strikes again!
So over on love miss bonnie I've started love monday's which is dedicated to what YOU love! Over here on The Baby Bump, I love my little couscous monster. I'm a big fan of the stuff so I was pretty chuffed when Redford gobbled it all in one go the first time I gave it to him. Here's some pictures (cute, but hella messy!)....
28.1.11
You know you're a Mum when....
you
get into bed at night and end up pulling a Duplo block from under your
butt, a maraca from under your pillow and a stretch-n-grow from between
your toes. Oh, and there seems to be a mysterious damp patch that smells
a lot like regurgitated milk on your bedspread.
Sweet treats - Nicky's pineapple muffins
If made correctly, these muffins should look a little something like the picture above. Haha, funny lady. I crack myself up. Meh. But! In all seriousness, this recipe has kindly been passed down to me by my darling ma-in-law and these are AMAZING and addictive and should be made with ease but eaten with gusto. For example, today I ate three. I do not feel guilty about this whatsoever and if there had been more, I would've eaten those too. I wouldn't have felt guilty about that either. In fact, I would probably eat a whole batch of these babies and feel pretty proud.
Anyhoooo, here's the recipe....
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white flour
1/2 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 cup wheat bran
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
Small tin crushed pineapple (pref. in juice not syrup)
1/2 cup sultanas
4 oz butter
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
Combine dry ingredients. Add pineapple and sultanas to dry ingredients. Melt butter, add egg and milk and stir. Pour onto dry ingredients and mix just to combine - don't over mix! Spoon into muffin trays and bake at 190 degrees C for approx 20 minutes. Leave in tins for a few minutes then transfer onto rack. Let cool and shove them in your gob. Et voila!
So the good thing about this recipe is you can mix it up a bit - use stewed apple (or any other fruit) instead of pineapple, substitute sultanas for raisins or dried apricots and if you want to use just wholemeal flour then make up the amount you'd use for white flour. If you're using pineapple in syrup maybe cut down the sugar a little otherwise they can come out a little too sweet.
Happy baking!
24.1.11
PTSD in motherhood - the KMB article
Last year I wrote an article for the Go Ask Your Mother panel over at KMB on post traumatic stress disorder in early motherhood. I had no idea it even existed until very recently and I found it an interesting and very sobering topic. Here's the article below:
Knock, knock. Who's there? PTSD. Oh, you're not welcome here.
Picture this: you're pregnant, your belly's ripe, the baby's baked, the bags are packed and the birth plan is written up and thrice checked. You know each step word for word, you've mapped out the quickest way to the maternity ward and the last four weeks have been spent envisioning your baby's magical birth. But now it's D-day and things aren't going to plan. Not at all. Not even close. Your natural water birth has morphed into a drug embellished emergency C-section and all your childbirth ideals have left the operating table for the brighter lights of Daydream Land. Everything went fine, though - you're still in one piece, baby's healthy, your partner has regained the colour in his face and the steadiness in his hands but what now? Surely there's got to be some emotional or psychological backlash for things going so horribly askew? For some women, we climb back on our horses and proceed as normal. For others however, it's not that simple.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is something I'd never really thought much about, for all I knew it was an ailment that afflicted war vets and car crash survivors and rightly so. That is until I myself was diagnosed with it three years ago after it crept up on me unannounced, arising from a harrowing ordeal in my teenage years. This was totally unrelated to childbirth of course, but that's not the point - it got me thinking. How many other people in this world suffer from PTSD and what exactly sets it off? I mean, we're talking about an often debilitating disorder that can strike at any time - right while the trauma iron is still burning hot or years down the track when you least expect it. PTSD can stem from a life threatening even such as a natural disaster or severe physical or psychological pain or abuse to name a couple. Put simply, any event that inflicts such psychological trauma on an individual that they cannot comprehend nor cope with the experience, PTSD may become and uninvited acquaintance.
When a friend sent me an article on PTSD in post childbirth/early motherhood situations (which cites that mothers who either fear their birthing experience or thing it will be amazing are at a higher risk of developing PTSD) I began to wonder just how common it was. The birth of my son didn't go according to my "ideals" at all (even when I thought I didn't have any) and I carried a slight emotional chip on my shoulder for a while because of that. I certainly didn't suffer the nightmares, vivid flashbacks or hyper vigilance that are common amongst PTSD sufferers but I definitely did get a little hot, flustered and nauseous every time I drove past the hospital. I wondered if PTSD was a lot more common in new mothers than was recognised and as it turns out, it is. Why then, are we only beginning to hear about it now? Well, according to many sources PTSD is still regularly diagnosed as postnatal depression (PND). Why? Because the symptoms are often so similar to PND it can sometimes be impossible to tell the difference.
Let's look at just a few of the warning signs of PND: sadness, a feeling of being overwhelmed, panic attacks, a lack of bonding between you and your baby and sleep and/or eating disorders. These can pop up soon after the birth or months later and can sometimes, without treatment, slowly heal themselves within time. Now this is where it gets tricky. PTSD can also rear it's ugly head soon after birth, months or even years later. The first onset of symptoms (such as nightmares, vivid flashbacks and panic attacks) can hang around for a while and if left to fester can morph into what's called cover up symptoms which range from depression and eating disorders to severe panic attacks and dissociation from your baby, partner and life. Sound familiar? Just like PND, right? Well, yes and no. The scary thing is, if PTSD is left untreated it doesn't go away like postnatal depression can. It can hang around. And around. Aaaand around until you have no choice but to deal with it. And nobody wants to spend their child's wee years feeling like the sky's about to fall and their sanity has well and truly done a fat Elvis and left the building.
So. I won't end this article with a string of advice because as new mothers we all get enough to last us a lifetime, nor do I want to end it on a bad note because there's always loads of light at the end of the tunnel. But I will say this (I know, I know, I haven't suffered PTSD first hand from childbirth but I have suffered extensively from it) if you feel off, if you feel strange, if things aren't going the way you thought, listen to what your body, mind and emotions are telling you and talk to someone, anyone! Your partner, your best friend, fellow mums, your bank teller for all it matters, just talk and talk and talk because at some point you'll be pointed in the right direction and bang, help will be standing there on your doorstep, looking as good as Ryan Reynolds with chocolates and flowers (and no shirt). Try not to pack it all into a little box and store it in the basement of your brain to let it gather dust and get shoved around to fit more boxes in that will hide it until three years down the track when you decide it's time to do a clean out and, oh dear, there's that box and now I have to unpack it and see what's inside and decide what on earth I'm going to do with it all. Catch my drift? Good.
My motto? If you're feeling crap, talk to the quack (or pretty much anyone else that you want to, but "anyone else that you want to" doesn't rhyme with crap and doesn't really have the same ring to it....)
Knock, knock. Who's there? PTSD. Oh, you're not welcome here.
Picture this: you're pregnant, your belly's ripe, the baby's baked, the bags are packed and the birth plan is written up and thrice checked. You know each step word for word, you've mapped out the quickest way to the maternity ward and the last four weeks have been spent envisioning your baby's magical birth. But now it's D-day and things aren't going to plan. Not at all. Not even close. Your natural water birth has morphed into a drug embellished emergency C-section and all your childbirth ideals have left the operating table for the brighter lights of Daydream Land. Everything went fine, though - you're still in one piece, baby's healthy, your partner has regained the colour in his face and the steadiness in his hands but what now? Surely there's got to be some emotional or psychological backlash for things going so horribly askew? For some women, we climb back on our horses and proceed as normal. For others however, it's not that simple.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is something I'd never really thought much about, for all I knew it was an ailment that afflicted war vets and car crash survivors and rightly so. That is until I myself was diagnosed with it three years ago after it crept up on me unannounced, arising from a harrowing ordeal in my teenage years. This was totally unrelated to childbirth of course, but that's not the point - it got me thinking. How many other people in this world suffer from PTSD and what exactly sets it off? I mean, we're talking about an often debilitating disorder that can strike at any time - right while the trauma iron is still burning hot or years down the track when you least expect it. PTSD can stem from a life threatening even such as a natural disaster or severe physical or psychological pain or abuse to name a couple. Put simply, any event that inflicts such psychological trauma on an individual that they cannot comprehend nor cope with the experience, PTSD may become and uninvited acquaintance.
When a friend sent me an article on PTSD in post childbirth/early motherhood situations (which cites that mothers who either fear their birthing experience or thing it will be amazing are at a higher risk of developing PTSD) I began to wonder just how common it was. The birth of my son didn't go according to my "ideals" at all (even when I thought I didn't have any) and I carried a slight emotional chip on my shoulder for a while because of that. I certainly didn't suffer the nightmares, vivid flashbacks or hyper vigilance that are common amongst PTSD sufferers but I definitely did get a little hot, flustered and nauseous every time I drove past the hospital. I wondered if PTSD was a lot more common in new mothers than was recognised and as it turns out, it is. Why then, are we only beginning to hear about it now? Well, according to many sources PTSD is still regularly diagnosed as postnatal depression (PND). Why? Because the symptoms are often so similar to PND it can sometimes be impossible to tell the difference.
Let's look at just a few of the warning signs of PND: sadness, a feeling of being overwhelmed, panic attacks, a lack of bonding between you and your baby and sleep and/or eating disorders. These can pop up soon after the birth or months later and can sometimes, without treatment, slowly heal themselves within time. Now this is where it gets tricky. PTSD can also rear it's ugly head soon after birth, months or even years later. The first onset of symptoms (such as nightmares, vivid flashbacks and panic attacks) can hang around for a while and if left to fester can morph into what's called cover up symptoms which range from depression and eating disorders to severe panic attacks and dissociation from your baby, partner and life. Sound familiar? Just like PND, right? Well, yes and no. The scary thing is, if PTSD is left untreated it doesn't go away like postnatal depression can. It can hang around. And around. Aaaand around until you have no choice but to deal with it. And nobody wants to spend their child's wee years feeling like the sky's about to fall and their sanity has well and truly done a fat Elvis and left the building.
So. I won't end this article with a string of advice because as new mothers we all get enough to last us a lifetime, nor do I want to end it on a bad note because there's always loads of light at the end of the tunnel. But I will say this (I know, I know, I haven't suffered PTSD first hand from childbirth but I have suffered extensively from it) if you feel off, if you feel strange, if things aren't going the way you thought, listen to what your body, mind and emotions are telling you and talk to someone, anyone! Your partner, your best friend, fellow mums, your bank teller for all it matters, just talk and talk and talk because at some point you'll be pointed in the right direction and bang, help will be standing there on your doorstep, looking as good as Ryan Reynolds with chocolates and flowers (and no shirt). Try not to pack it all into a little box and store it in the basement of your brain to let it gather dust and get shoved around to fit more boxes in that will hide it until three years down the track when you decide it's time to do a clean out and, oh dear, there's that box and now I have to unpack it and see what's inside and decide what on earth I'm going to do with it all. Catch my drift? Good.
My motto? If you're feeling crap, talk to the quack (or pretty much anyone else that you want to, but "anyone else that you want to" doesn't rhyme with crap and doesn't really have the same ring to it....)
21.1.11
You know you're a Mum when....
one of the most satisfying noises on earth is that of your baby's enormous belch after a big milk feed.
Uh oh, my baby appears to have a brain
If you'd told me a couple of weeks ago that Little Red's got a brain on him and knows how to get what he wants, when he wants I would've said "Pish!" and told you to get your head checked. If you told me that now though, I would solemnly nod my head in agreement and say "Why yes, you're right on the money with that one, dear."
How did I come to this conclusion, you ask? I credit it to a cold, hard slap in the face with the realisation that my sweet little angel is growing up and therefore, getting ready to push them boundaries further and further. And further.
So a week before Chrimbo, the wee man starting sprouting some teeth. He was a tad grumpy, a tad clingy and (more than) a tad sleepless. Our amazing nighttime sleepasaurus now saw fit to wake up at 9pm-ish as well as 2am for a feed. OK, I thought, it's alright, he's just sore and grouchy and soon enough he'll back to his old sleepy time habits and we'll all get a decent night's kip again. Nope. We got through the festivities and went on holiday where things began to get worse. Sleeping in a small bach with three other people, one doesn't feel inclined to let their baby "cry it out" so for the sanity of the household I cuddled and fed Redford whenever he woke. Sometimes he woke once, other times he woke three or four times.
Our first two nights back home, however, were fine. Little Red had me tricked into thinking he was back into the swing of big boy sleeping - with tricked being the operative word here, every night for the past two weeks he's been waking anytime between 9 and 11pm (sometimes more than once) and then at 2am as well as any amount of times between 3 and 7am. I try leaving him but he just screams to the point where I'm pretty sure I'm slowly losing hearing in one ear even though his room is across the hall.
Then the night before last I had an epiphany. Little Red was crying in his cot so, realising he wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon, I picked him up and he stopped. I put him back in and he started again. Then I got him out once more and.... silence. I gave him a wee feed thinking perhaps he needed a top up. He didn't. He just lay there in my arms cooing away and grinning like the cat that got the cream. The little (ahem) rascal. And me! What had I done?! All that hard work getting him to settle himself and I'd gone and erased it all in one foul swoop.
So after about four hours of sleep last night I decided this morning that I would keep a close eye on this behaviour to see how it evolved. Apparently I've been wandering around with a cheeky-baby shaped veil over my eyes for the past few weeks because as soon as I started to really take note of what was going on I saw Redford's little brain ticking over in the cold, harsh light of day. The boy's been taking me for one hell of a ride and I've been lolling about in the "he's-too-little-to-know-what-he's-doing" cart picking my bloody fingernails.
Another example of the tot's wily ways is mealtimes. The boy's hungry but thinks it's funny to clamp his mouth shut when the spoon hits those lips. He also has loads of fun knocking his sippy cup or throwing his crackers on the floor and then leaning right out of his highchair to stare at them until you pick them up (upon which he repeats said cracker throwing). And, in the last couple days, he's grown ever so partial to throwing the odd tantrum in his highchair (complete with swinging fists and bouncing bottom) when he'd rather be playing. All of this, of course, had gone straight over my head until today when I realised exactly what he was up to and decided two could play at that game but there would be only one winner (me). He clamps his mouth shut, I daub a bit of food on the tray to distract him and ta da! The gob magically opens up. He throws his crackers off, I pick them up, say "all gone" and put them on the table for him to see that they're not coming back. Needless to say, he soon gets bored of that game. And my answer to his I'd-rather-be-wreaking-havoc-elsewhere tantrums? I simply ignored him. I sat there with my head turned the other way until he got bored and started twiddling his thumbs.
Ha! I win! Having said that though, I have yet to see how tonight's sleep will go. Nick and I will be going back to the controlled crying technique from now on to (fingers crossed) battle those late night whinge marathons. As we speak, I am steeling myself for a night of snatched shut eyes in between screams. Sheesh. Watch this space - hopefully I'll survive the night with my hearing and my sanity in tact!
PS. We attacked the midnight tantrums with gusto last night - Little Red woke up at 10pm crying, I knew he couldn't be hungry and it was nice and toasty in his room so we stealthily enforced the controlled crying again and it worked.... eventually. An hour later of me popping my head round the door every 5, 10 then 15 minutes and saying "Night, night sweetheart. I love you" he was asleep and didn't wake again til 4am! Yippee! I did feed him at 4 though and he was hungry but perhaps in a few weeks we'll tackle the 4am wake-ups. Baby steps, baby steps.
Follow-follow up: Since above PS Redford has been sleeping 6pm-4am and then after a wee feed he's back in the land of nod until 8am! Awesomeness.
How did I come to this conclusion, you ask? I credit it to a cold, hard slap in the face with the realisation that my sweet little angel is growing up and therefore, getting ready to push them boundaries further and further. And further.
So a week before Chrimbo, the wee man starting sprouting some teeth. He was a tad grumpy, a tad clingy and (more than) a tad sleepless. Our amazing nighttime sleepasaurus now saw fit to wake up at 9pm-ish as well as 2am for a feed. OK, I thought, it's alright, he's just sore and grouchy and soon enough he'll back to his old sleepy time habits and we'll all get a decent night's kip again. Nope. We got through the festivities and went on holiday where things began to get worse. Sleeping in a small bach with three other people, one doesn't feel inclined to let their baby "cry it out" so for the sanity of the household I cuddled and fed Redford whenever he woke. Sometimes he woke once, other times he woke three or four times.
Our first two nights back home, however, were fine. Little Red had me tricked into thinking he was back into the swing of big boy sleeping - with tricked being the operative word here, every night for the past two weeks he's been waking anytime between 9 and 11pm (sometimes more than once) and then at 2am as well as any amount of times between 3 and 7am. I try leaving him but he just screams to the point where I'm pretty sure I'm slowly losing hearing in one ear even though his room is across the hall.
Then the night before last I had an epiphany. Little Red was crying in his cot so, realising he wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon, I picked him up and he stopped. I put him back in and he started again. Then I got him out once more and.... silence. I gave him a wee feed thinking perhaps he needed a top up. He didn't. He just lay there in my arms cooing away and grinning like the cat that got the cream. The little (ahem) rascal. And me! What had I done?! All that hard work getting him to settle himself and I'd gone and erased it all in one foul swoop.
So after about four hours of sleep last night I decided this morning that I would keep a close eye on this behaviour to see how it evolved. Apparently I've been wandering around with a cheeky-baby shaped veil over my eyes for the past few weeks because as soon as I started to really take note of what was going on I saw Redford's little brain ticking over in the cold, harsh light of day. The boy's been taking me for one hell of a ride and I've been lolling about in the "he's-too-little-to-know-what-he's-doing" cart picking my bloody fingernails.
Another example of the tot's wily ways is mealtimes. The boy's hungry but thinks it's funny to clamp his mouth shut when the spoon hits those lips. He also has loads of fun knocking his sippy cup or throwing his crackers on the floor and then leaning right out of his highchair to stare at them until you pick them up (upon which he repeats said cracker throwing). And, in the last couple days, he's grown ever so partial to throwing the odd tantrum in his highchair (complete with swinging fists and bouncing bottom) when he'd rather be playing. All of this, of course, had gone straight over my head until today when I realised exactly what he was up to and decided two could play at that game but there would be only one winner (me). He clamps his mouth shut, I daub a bit of food on the tray to distract him and ta da! The gob magically opens up. He throws his crackers off, I pick them up, say "all gone" and put them on the table for him to see that they're not coming back. Needless to say, he soon gets bored of that game. And my answer to his I'd-rather-be-wreaking-havoc-elsewhere tantrums? I simply ignored him. I sat there with my head turned the other way until he got bored and started twiddling his thumbs.
Ha! I win! Having said that though, I have yet to see how tonight's sleep will go. Nick and I will be going back to the controlled crying technique from now on to (fingers crossed) battle those late night whinge marathons. As we speak, I am steeling myself for a night of snatched shut eyes in between screams. Sheesh. Watch this space - hopefully I'll survive the night with my hearing and my sanity in tact!
PS. We attacked the midnight tantrums with gusto last night - Little Red woke up at 10pm crying, I knew he couldn't be hungry and it was nice and toasty in his room so we stealthily enforced the controlled crying again and it worked.... eventually. An hour later of me popping my head round the door every 5, 10 then 15 minutes and saying "Night, night sweetheart. I love you" he was asleep and didn't wake again til 4am! Yippee! I did feed him at 4 though and he was hungry but perhaps in a few weeks we'll tackle the 4am wake-ups. Baby steps, baby steps.
Follow-follow up: Since above PS Redford has been sleeping 6pm-4am and then after a wee feed he's back in the land of nod until 8am! Awesomeness.
14.1.11
You know you're a Mum when....
you get Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen stuck in your head at least four times a week. No? Just me? OK then.
7.1.11
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