The Battle of the Beans

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Today has been quite hellish at times. I have cried at least twice, I have certainly ranted and I've lost count of the times that I have said, "Just eat your food!"

The Boy has always been good with his food, even as a baby and feeding from the bottle, he drank beautifully and without fuss. When I started weaning him, he accepted each new taste with pleasure and a great tolerance. Apart from mangoes, and who can really blame him. Second stage weaning saw a baby who was enthusiastic about the home-cooked meals that I prepared and cooked, and he went from strength to strength always eating everything given to him.

About six months ago he decided to exhibit the typical two year old's decision to exert his authority and ability to control a situation. He is well behaved with everything and always does as he is asked, but at that point he decided to show that he can control things himself, and he would become a right pain at mealtimes. I rode it out as he was still so young, and things improved drastically quickly.

Lately I've noticed he's messing around a lot at dinner times and is barely eating. I have never wanted to force him to eat, but I don't find him saying he's finished after three spoonfuls an acceptable amount for a child who's going through a growth spurt. He isn't getting enough nutrients or calories in that small amount to sustain himself throughout the day. An added concern to this is that he's started at a private nursery one morning a week and has lunch there, serving himself and eating with his friends. The feedback is that he's not eating very much, and this week he refused to have a drink of milk and half a banana at snacktime. This is not good because if nothing else will enter his mouth, they are the two staples he would survive on.

Today has seen World War Three and Four in this house at both lunchtime and teatime. He was served exactly the same meal at lunchtime as Mr. TheBoyandMe who sat and ate with him, but it took him well over an hour to eat it, and even then he didn't finish. Lunch was one of his favourite meals: cheesy pasta with ham. There was no reason for him not to eat it, but he couldn't be bothered. He wasn't exerting control of the situation he, just didn't want to eat it. Tea was similar with his other favourite of beans on toast. An hour!

There are those who would tell me that he'll eat when he's ready, but I'm not prepared to accept that. When it has been going on for more than a fortnight, during which time he's developed ear infections and a cold, it's not ok. I can only conclude that he's developed lazy habits at mealtimes and, with his third birthday next month, it has to stop. I'm at the end of my tether and I feel like I'm failing him.

That's why this evening I'm going to be sitting down to read this book that I've been sent:

It's been sat on the kitchen shelf for a month or two now, and I was going to get around to reading it, but now I need to. Because I can not have another day like today. I can not scream like a banshee at my child. I can not sit and sob at my failings as a mother.

With sections on 'why it hurts us so much', 'how much does a child need to eat', 'a child's three defences', 'what not to do at mealtimes' (I suspect digging my heels in is one of them), and 'how not to force a child to eat', I am hoping that 'My Child Won't Eat' is going to change my perception and explain things a little bit more to me. I want him to be happy at mealtimes and healthy because of the food he's eating.

In the meantime, there are certain things that are changing at mealtimes. And it's been with the help of the lovely folk of twitter that I've reached these decisions:

  • no pudding unless the main food is eaten (we've always relented in the past because 'he's done quite well', or 'he's just a baby'. No more!)
  • no snacks in between meals (there aren't any really but it's something I need to tell my mum who does give him some)
  • while breakfast is still in two parts (cereal first, toast or brioche half an hour later), he will no longer have the second part on a plate in the living room while he's playing or watching television. He'll be sat to the table and will eat it there.

Mealtimes mean eating kiddo! Once we've got that re-established, then you can chat!

Any more tips or advice please?

I was sent this book to review, my situation and need is real and frustrating.

MAD About Photography

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Thank you!

I can't really begin to tell you what it means to be a finalist in the MAD Blog Awards, but it's a hell of a lot. I've always loved taking photos, even when I was a child and my mum and dad bought me my first 'film' camera. I've progressed now onto my dSLR, my phone and an iPad but regardless of the means, for me it is about the composition and the content.

To have so many people nominate and then vote for me, means so much. I've only been blogging for a year and a half, and to make it to final five finalists from the 143 nominated is overwhelming. The support for the 366 linky is amazing, and it has grown into an amazing community of people helping and supporting each other. Thanks to them.

I'm incredibly grateful to everyone that voted for me, thank you so much. I hope that it's because of photos like this that you've nominated me:

Equally, I'm aware it could be because of this:

Or maybe this?

Either way, thank you from the bottom of my heart, it means a lot because I'm just a mum with a camera.

If you'd like to vote for me, then please click the badge below and select 'TheBoyandMe' in the photography section.

Mum and Dad Blog Awards 2012

Guest-Post: Blog It For Babies

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I have a guest-post for you today from a finalist in the Fresh Voices category in the Britmums Brilliance in Blogging Awards. Ruth, blogs over at DorkyMum, and wants to share with you the Save The Children: Blog It For Babies campaign.

Blog It For Babies

If you're a parent blogger, I'd say there's a very good chance that at some point in your life you've had to give some thought to giving birth. You may not have gone to NCT classes, or swotted up on every single birthing book out there, but you'll still have been aware of your choices, and made decisions based on those choices.

Do you remember the anxious excitement of writing a birth plan (even if you only wrote it as a mental list in your head)? What an overwhelming number of options we have if we're giving birth in this country. Do we want a homebirth or a hospital birth? Who will our birth partner be? Will we have a birthing pool? What if we go overdue? When will we agree to being induced? How will we get through early labour – a TENS machine? Paracetamol? (Yes, I laughed when the midwife suggested that too…). Will we use gas and air? How do we feel about epidurals? Episiotomies? Do we want the cord clamped? What happens if we have a caesarean?

Crikey. What a lot to think about. There are so many choices.

No wonder we all feel a bit stressed and overwhelmed if we're due to give birth. No wonder we set such high expectations for ourselves in terms of having the 'perfect' birth, and no wonder that so many of us then have such mixed emotions if things don't go to plan.

But let's look at it another way. How lucky we are to have those choices available to us, and to be in a position to make informed decisions. How lucky we are to live somewhere where we know that even if our birth plan goes out of the window, we are very likely to end the process with a healthy baby, delivered in a clean and safe environment. How lucky we are to know that if our babies are born needing any kind of medical attention, there will be qualified doctors on hand to provide it.

There are thousands of women in the world who do not live with that knowledge, and do not have that guarantee.

There are women in Bangladesh like Panna, who has given birth four times, but only had two of her babies survive, and women like Shipra, who has also given birth four times, but who lost three of those babies within hours or days of their birth.

Only 18% of births in Bangladesh have a trained health worker present. And 1 in 19 children in Bangladesh will not live to see their 5th Birthday, due to a lack of basic healthcare.

What is frustrating is that it doesn't have to be that way.

Save the Children already have the knowledge and experience that will allow them to help women like Panna and Shipra. Now all they need is the funding.

The Build it for Babies campaign is a £1 million appeal that will allow Save the Children to build seven life-saving clinics in the poorest parts of Bangladesh. You can find out more about the appeal on their website – there are so many ways to get involved, and every single penny counts.

You can select Build it for Babies as your charity of choice to support through BritMums For Good whilst shopping via Give As You Live.

You can also pay a visit to Save The Children's Build it for Babies virtual clinic microsite: www.savethechildren.org.uk/buildit and shop directly for something that you would like to buy for the women and children of Bangladesh.

Here's a few of the items you'll find on the Build it for Babies shopping list:

  • £5 can buy a brick – without which there will quite simply be no health centres
  • £14 can buy a set of scales for weighing babies
  • £49 could buy a delivery kit, a complete set of equipment for delivering babies safely
  • £150 could pay for a paramedic for a month to treat acutely ill children
  • £1,000 could buy a year's supply of emergency medical kits to help mothers with difficult deliveries
  • £2,500 can help build a well to provide clean water for the clinic and keep families safe from deadly diseases.

Let's get involved, and help give the women of Bangladesh the same support that we had when we were pregnant and giving birth.

Getting Snappy!

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This morning, The Boy and I popped into Cardiff to pick up a few things. While we were settling down for a Starbucks and a cake, I checked my mobile phone and saw a text message from the marvellous MammyWoo:

"YOU'RE A FINALIST IN THE BIBS!!!! Me too!!! Wahoooooo congrats!!!"

Nearly dropping my frappucino and cinnamon swirl, I replied with words that I can't repeat on my blog. Thank goodness I was in Starbucks because I was able to use their free wi-fi and check twitter and the BritMums Brilliance in Blogging website; Mammy wasn't lying!

I haven't stopped smiling to myself all day, it is such an amazing feeling to get this far. To have been nominated by peers in the first place was overwhelming, to be shortlisted amongt nineteen other bloggers was astounding and humbling. But to have been shortlisted alongside seven others is just… wow!

Thank you to every single person who nominated me in the initial stages, and then voted for me at shortlist stage. Without your support, I wouldn't be here. It's all down to the judge Julia Boggio to decide which one of us is the Snap! winner for 2012. There is such great talent in the category, that just to be at this stage, then be there hearing my name read out amongst the other nominees on the awards night is reward enough.*

Thank you!

Snap Finalist

*Well, almost. Who wouldn't want to win?!

Meal Planning Monday #9

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We've had an impromptu visit to family this weekend (but still managed to have a Chinese on Saturday night) and so for once I'm actually planning on a Monday, as opposed to a Sunday when I normally do it.

My plan this week involves using up food already in the house because we're running out of freezer/cupboard space and that's ridiculous. We've also got the BT phone bill due next week, and The Boy's birthday plus a holiday and Britmums Live next month, so I'm now on an economy drive. Nothing apart from bread and milk will be purchased this week!

  • Sunday: away
  • Monday: Quorn escalope with gruyere cheese/chicken and mushroom pie (freezer food), potato wedges and peas.
  • Tuesday: Meatballs and spaghetti (yes I know I've missed out the 'a' in spaghetti).
  • Wednesday (late work night): Cheese & vegetable pasties, potato wedges and salad.
  • Thursday:Pasta and vegetable salad.
  • Friday: Chinese! (Of course!)
  • Saturday: Risotto and ciabatta bread (mix in cupboard). I think I'm going to do a primaverdi and parmesan version to try and welcome in Spring and Summer. I may even partake of Pimm's alongside it.

There you go, hardly inspiring but it will work for me.

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I'm linking this up to Meal Planning Monday at Mrs. M's

Coffee Cupcakes

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As we haven't made any cakes in a while and the weather is horrendous, The Boy and I have just been baking.

Coffee Cupcakes

Ingredients:

  • 110g self-raising flour
  • 1tsp baking powder
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 100g Stork Baking Liquid*
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 tsp of espresso powder dissolved in a small amount of hot water.
  1. Cream the caster sugar and Stork Baking Liquid together. As the 'butter' is already a liquid, it is far easier to mix, especially for little ones. There's also a handy measuring marker down the side of the bottle for easy dispensing.
  2. Mix in the egg, add a little flour if it starts to curdle. Mine always curdles; this time? It didn't.
  3. Add the remaining flour and baking powder and mix.
  4. Stir in the coffee mixture. (I added 10g more flour to counter this additional liquid).
  5. Bake for 14 minutes on 180°C.
  6. Top with coffee flavoured buttercream (2 tsp of coffee added to a basic recipe. NB: I found that I needed a bit more than 1/4 Stork Baking Liquid to a bit less than 3/4 icing sugar. Incidentally, it is the best buttercream that I have ever made; smooth, creamy and the icing sugar didn't go everywhere.)
  7. Eat and enjoy!

I was sent the product marked * for the purpose of trial. My opinion (that it's really easy to use and made the cakes tasty and light) is honest and unbiased.

Slow Cooked Sticky Sausage Stew (Vegetarian)

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I made a sausage stew the other week in the slow cooker and it went quite well, but I think adding the yoghurt/cream was a mistake. It's not the type of thing to make creamy, it needs to be rich and dark to really work.

Sticky Sausage Stew

slow cooked sausage

Ingredients:

  • handful of mushrooms
  • half a leek
  • knob of butter
  • carrots, sugar snaps, and green beans (or any other vegetables lying around)
  • half a butternut squash
  • 6 meat-free sausages (I used Quorn but Cauldron Lincolnshire would work well too)
  • 200ml of hot water
  • 2 tablespoons of mango chutney
  • 2 tablespoons of gravy browning
  1. Sweat the chopped mushrooms and leek down in the knob of butter. Transfer to the slow-cooker (I have a swizzy slow-cooker that allows the pot to be used on the hob directly).
  2. Add the chopped vegetables and the water, stir in and leave for two hours on high.
  3. After two hours add the mango chutney, stir and cover for another hour on high.
  4. Add the sausages chopped into half or thirds and leave for another hour on medium.
  5. Stir in the gravy granules twenty minutes before serving.
  6. Serve with crusty bread and proper butter.

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Linking this up to Mediocre Mum's Slow Cooker Sunday and to Plus2Point4's Viva Veg

Rainbow Weaving (Scrap Art)

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A fortnight ago, I read this post about scrap centres from The Alexander Residence. It reminded me about the recycling centre that I used to visit when I was training to be a nursery nurse, and I wondered if sixteen years later, it was still going. It is, and it's been improved. I had a little think about what activity we could do using the resources that we'd be able to find there.

Then the next day, a post from the Goddess that is Cathy at The Nurture Store popped into my inbox about the new Kids Art Explorers' Challenge. The theme was paper-free art, and suddenly I knew exactly what I was going to be doing with The Boy.

His favourite song at the moment is the 'Mo-mo' song from 'Show Me, Show Me'. We both pretend to be robots, put on our best mechanical voice and do robot arms while singing about the colours of the rainbow. It's quite amusing and I'm trying to get it on video to post, but he runs away screaming whenever I produce the FlipCam lately.

When we finally managed to get to our local scrap centre we had great fun delving in all the bins, finding treasures, discussing what we could use them for, getting over excited with various materials that we had no use for (let alone space) and saving oodles and oodles of dosh.

Originally I'd intended to do this activity on the patio using the bamboo fence. But it's currently submerged in eleventy billion feet of water so I tied netting up against the bannister upstairs on the landing and we did the activity there instead.

I knew the iPad was an essential educational tool! We gathered our resources together, examined a reference picture and discussed which colours we needed. An interesting discussion about what colour indigo is ensued and then a discussion about the difference between that and violet. Try and explain hues to a two year old.

Life became a lot easier for both The Boy and me once I'd remembered he is left-handed and realised that threading from left-right was causing him issues. One of the many things that need reversing when teaching a left-hander.

Admiring our handiwork and our beautiful rainbow!

This was a really enjoyable activity and The Boy loves sitting and feeling the different textures in the rainbow along with singing Mo-mo's song. The total cost of the resources for the activity was £1. (Just ignore the cost of the iPad)

You can search for your own nearest scrap centre here.

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I'm linking this up to The Nurture Store's Kids Art Explorers Project.

Five Things To Do Before You're Three

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I was chatting with my sister-in-law earlier and she mentioned something that she'd read through her work (outdoor adventure leader for children with behavioural problems) which I found fascinating, and wanted to share.

The National Trust, as a part of their nationwide campaign to encourage outdoor adventure and play in our couch-potato children, has published a list of 50 Things To Do Before You're 11¾. I'm a big fan of Country Kids over on Coombe Mill and try and take part most weeks with photos and posts of The Boy having fun outdoors and generally getting mucky. This list has a great range of things on there, quite a few of which he's already experienced:

Climb a tree (04/11/12), roll down a really big hill, camp out in the wild, build a den, skim a stone, run around in the rain, fly a kite, catch a fish with a net, eat an apple straight from a tree, play conkers, throw some snow, hunt for treasure on the beach, make a mud pie, dam a stream, go sledging, bury someone in the sand, set up a snail race, balance on a fallen tree, swing on a rope swing, make a mud slide, eat blackberries growing in the wild, take a look inside a tree, visit an island, feel like you’re flying in the wind, make a grass trumpet, hunt for fossils and bones, watch the sun wake up, climb a huge hill, get behind a waterfall, feed a bird from your hand (09/12 – Coombe Mill), hunt for bugs, find some frogspawn, catch a butterfly in a net, track wild animals, discover what’s in a pond, call an owl, check out the crazy creatures in a rock pool, bring up a butterfly, catch a crab, go on a nature walk at night, plant it grow it eat it, go wild swimming, go rafting, light a fire without matches, find your way with a map and compass, try bouldering, cook on a campfire, try abseiling, find a geocache, canoe down a river.

There's obviously quite a few things on that list that are a bit tricky for a two and three-quarter year old to do, but he's got nine years to scare the hell out of me and try abseiling and canoe down a river. However, I'm going to set him a little target of five things from the list to do before he's three years old in six and a half weeks time (eeek!):

I reckon they're achievable?

What five things are you going to do with your tiddler from the list?

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