Geoff worked from home today, wohoo, it doesn’t happen often, but it’s nice to have him around when he can do it. It doesn’t mean that he gets to help me out as much as he does on a weekend or days he has off, but he can do things like have lunch with us, which allows Levi to have some daddy cuddles in the middle of the day, which they both enjoy & allows me to have a short break.

I achieved quite a bit today, making a nice chicken & veggie soup (chicken on the bone, onion, garlic, carrot, parsnip, turnip, celery, potato) so that it was ready for lunch. Later I made homemade lemonade (lemon juice) and hummus, which we had as a snack with carrot sticks & some Tostitos  in the afternoon before getting Levi ready for bed. Dinner was the rest of the chicken & veg soup. I made up some food for Levi for the next day or so, puréed parsnips (which he loves).

Other achievements were some writing including blog posts & also worked on our curtains. We might actually have some up before our one year anniversary in buying this place. Progress on a lot of little projects like that has been slow, as we have been doing it all ourselves & time is pretty hard to find with a little one, who is also vying for your attention & needs to be fed, changed, put on the toilet & entertained….

I did pretty well for a day that started out with me feeling very overwhelmed with everything. My To Do list is quite long & it often seems like I won’t even get close to getting anything done, but then you have a day like today & it builds your confidence.

Yesterday, I had my appointment with a cardiologist for him to take a full medical history & give us the results from all of the tests I have had. Structurally my heart is ok, they couldn’t find any defaults or damage. Sometimes the signals your body gives for your heart to beat can cause misfires, lots of people have it happen & are unaware of it. My body does it & apparently it’s most common in women. I could take something for it, but it’s not necessary. It won’t fix it, it just masks the effects & gives you a heap of other side effects, no surprises that I decided not to.

I was told that I needed to exercise a bit more, which he understands that I find hard to do because of my joint issues. Perhaps it’s the damp weather of late, but my knees, ankles & wrists are causing a few issues of late. Knees & ankles make it especially hard to move about & I have started strapping them on a regular basis, to try to prevent more injury. I started shrinking a few years back, which he thought was weird, so maybe I should try to pursue that. I’m not 100% sure that my intake of calcium is up to scratch, so it’s probably worth checking into.

All in all, though, knowing that my heart is essentially fine, is amazing, after having this hanging over our heads for the last 8 months.

We ripped out all of the little crappy bushes that were growing at the back fence, there were about 6 & burnt off a bit of rubbish from fallen branches, the bushes we pulled out, our old x-mas tree, wood scraps from the wood we got for last winter etc. We have been weeding, trimming trees & generally tidying up gardens. It’s been a bit of work, but it has been soooo much fun. It’s really nice to do stuff in OUR YARD for US.

Of course it has been a bit of an education too, with me having a few reactions to plants & bugs, but you get that. The best reaction was  on Wednesday(2 May) when I was bitten by a black fly on my eye lid & the next day my eye was swollen shut. I have also reacted to stinging nettle & other misc bites from other insects. But it’s all par for the course really. Whilst I am breastfeeding, I can at least take some antihistamine, it’s not as much a risk to Levi as it was whilst I was pregnant with him. It’s actually good that I can take some, as the lilac trees will be blooming soon & that might be kinda interesting, this year will be the test to see whether they are kept or cut down for firewood

Hopefully we can put in a bit of a veggie garden this year, which we are both looking forward to, nothing quite so fulfilling as growing your own food to consume. I would love to get into canning/ preserving some of what we grow eventually too. This year one of my tasks is to find a use for the apples that we have on our apple trees in the front yard.

VERY EXCITING TIMES!!!

I introduced Levi to lots of fruit & veg, before he tried rice cereal or pablum today, normally you do cereals first, then fruit & veg. He’s my kid & I see fit to do thing in the way that suits us, not anyone else. Not to mention there is a lot of confusing information about introducing cereals & my doctor is a bit of a twat when it comes to my allergies & the possibility that Levi may have some or all of them & how that affects introducing foods. I am allergic to Milk (all dairy) be it cow, goat, sheep, camel, horse or whatever other animal you want to milk, Wheat, Rye, Oats, Barley, (Spelt, Couscous etc),  Eggs, Peanuts. On my side there is a history of allergies, none are quite as severe as mine, but they do exist. Many grew out of their allergies, I have not, mine have actually gotten worse, but shit happens eh?

I am actually really glad that I choose to introduce him to solids in the way I have. Solids DO NOT replace breastfeeding, infact it’s suggested that you don’t even try to fill them up on solids, it’s just to give them a taste, especially at the start. Levi will still have a decent serving of solids (he can eat a whole banana) & still have a decent breastfeed afterwards. I think that some assume that once you start to introduce solids they are immediately off breast milk or formula, but that isn’t the case. It’s a gradual process, their guts have to get used to solids & that’s a bit of a process, lets just say that I’m glad that we are toilet training him already, I could not go back to changing poopy (solids) nappies & I have no idea how other parents can do it.

By me introducing him to banana’s from the start, I can now use that as the magical food. If he gets constipated, as he did with the sweet potato, then banana helps them to poop. If they have diarrhoea, then banana helps to stop that too. These are the things that you learn as a parent & no-one really shares it with you until you are desperate (5 days later).

Anyhow, so today I made him brown rice pablum, which is quite simple to do, especially now that I have a baby bullet. I decided to mix some of the rice pablum with some mashed banana. Not only does it improve the taste of the pablum, but it gives Levi a familiar flavour & should help to prevent constipation, which rice can do.

Here is the recipe that I used;

1/2 C of ground rice (mulled in baby bullet for approx 30 sec)
4C of water

Put ground rice & water in a pot. Bring to boil the put lid on & simmer for 20min, stirring occasionally.

I must admit that it seemed like a lot of water at the start, so I gradually added it through the cooking process. I was shocked that I actually managed to use it all. Of course, you can add more if you want to, until it’s at the desired consistency. I served some with mashed banana (to prevent him blocking up) I did about half a banana to about 4 tablespoons of cooked rice porridge. It makes a lot of porridge, so be prepared.

It’s so much cheaper to make your own. I bought 900g of brown rice for $1 & have barely used any, maybe 1/20 or less. Always put brown rice in the fridge after opening as it will prevent it going rancid. Even more important when you grind it.

Because we are toilet training I have been very conscious of the need to take him & put him on the toilet as often as possible to try to encourage him to poop, but he was fairly backed up & pissed off about it.

It’s funny how you only find out about miracle fruits like Banana when you are in a crisis like this. Banana will help babies to poop if they are constipated OR if they have diarrhoea it will help to solidify their poop a bit more, it adjusts according to their needs, which is fantastic to know as a mum of a whiny kid in need of a poop.

So proud of Levi too, every poop was in the toilet. It’s a combined effort for all of us, as we know his poop cues & choose not to ignore them. There’s a lot more happiness all round, with him not having poop squeezed into every area it can get into down there & us not having to do a huge clean up. It saves nappies (we are still in cloth, so it saves cleaning them) & saves lots of wipes etc to clean him with.

Levi has never liked having a wet nappy on or even a dirty one, so toilet training has been fairly easy, I think it’s been a lot easier then what some people have to deal with. I really couldn’t imagine having Levi in nappies for over 2 years & having to continue to change poopy ones in that time. I take my hat off to all the parents who do, do that, I just couldn’t.  Perhaps it will be different with the second one?

I was really chuffed to get one so soon, after using one a little bit yesterday at the baby food making get-together, I reassessed my preconceived ideas about how much of a waste of money the little blenders were. It works really well to have a smaller blender, because often you are not doing HUGE batches of food & when you use a big blender you end up with almost a serving of food stuck at the bottom with the blade & no way to get it out (unless it’s super runny) so you are wasting food.

I thought that the baby bullet & other small blenders were a bit of a gimmic, but after having used one, there is definitely a use for them. Plus with the baby bullet you get all sorts of containers to put food in (that are baby size portions) & she threw in a heap of extra containers that she had (which was nice as they were the same as a set I got for my baby shower & loved).

There is an attachment that you can use to mull things (grind them up) which is fantastic for making your own cereal, so you can grind up your rice, ready to make into rice pablum or any other grains you desire & it’s heaps cheaper than buying the stuff that is pre-prepared.

A jar of baby food will set you back $1-2 for ONE serving, whilst I can cook up some veg or fruit & make SEVERAL servings of baby food for about the same price as ONE jar. The added bonus is that it’s fresh food & I know what is in it, ontop of the monetary value. Thus saving us money to buy other things that we need. Not to mention with Levi not being on formula I am saving a mint there too, a can costs about $30 each, if we were putting him in disposable nappies all the time, that would be another expense with boxes of nappies running around $39 or more for 100 & he can use 12 or more in a day. It all adds up pretty fast.

I realise that there is a bit of an outlay with the baby bullet from the start, but we will be using it for a very, very long time. Once all the foods have been introduced, we can start to give him portions of our food, so a stew can be puréed / mulched up etc.

So there you have it, a shameful bit of advertising for the baby bullet, at least it’s honest & I certainly wasn’t paid. Someone once asked me if I would like to be paid to do reviews for different things & I said that as long as they didn’t mind me being honest, just because you want to pay me won’t change my opinions & I won’t always write a favourable comment/ review, funnily enough I never heard back, they must have had some shit products.

It was a successful day with lots of baby food being made, carrots, beans, peas, mango, pork, sweet potato. I ran out of containers in the end & had to borrow some from Nina. I did manage to get some ice trays from Walmart with covers, that I can use for next time though. Tonight we started carrots & will stick with that for 4 days, before moving onto the next food

You don’t stop breastfeeding either whilst introducing solids, it is just to give him a taste & workout if there are any allergies or intolerances to foods one at a time (thus 4 days of the same food, then a switch to the next). I really don’t know that he eats any less breast milk & he certainly likes it a lot more, than food most times, but he does like to eat some food the same as us too. The aim for me is to continue to breastfeed him for as long as I can. I would like to continue until 24 months of age, but will settle for 12 months as a minimum. By 10 months you should have introduced most fruits, veg & meat (unprocessed).

What an awesome Easter we had.

Friday Mike, Reena & Harmon came to visit & I organised an Easter egg hunt for everyone. I hid 167 eggs around the property, chocolate eggs, not hard boiled. Well actually, I also hid rabbit jubes wrapped in foil too. Harmon is allergic to all nuts, so I individually wrapped a bag of chocolate eggs that were nut free (as I couldn’t find any to buy that were individually wrapped). I just used regular alfoil, which was quite fun. I didn’t hide any underneath things, but I did hide them in rather obscure places, like in the bark of the trees etc. It was Mikes first egg hunt & Levi’s too. I have done an egg hunt with hard boiled eggs, but this was much more satisfying, NO-ONE wants to eat that many hard boiled eggs, but tiny chocolate eggs with a few bigger ones added in here & there, that’s not so bad

Everyone stayed for dinner & afterwards we played a game of Super Munchkin, which is always fun. There are several versions of the game Munchkin & eventually we will get one of our own, will have to workout which one we are getting at some point. Last time Geoff & I played we both tied a win for the game. This time though no matter how hard we all tried to defeat Mike, he still managed to take the win. It was a very good game though & I look forward to playing it again.

Saturday we headed over to Quebec to spend the weekend with Xavier, Jess & little Eleanore.

Jess loves to cook, so on the weekend we were spoilt with several course meals every night & not just one dessert either, there was always a few to eat, I of course had to sample them all. The theme for the weekend was Maple Syrup & the aim was to eat so much that we all got sick. It took a bit, but I finally got there Sunday night. We even managed to squeeze in a trip for some sushi on the weekend, which was nice.

It was an awesome weekend all round, made all the better for the awesome company that we had. Hope that you all enjoyed a Happy Easter too!

Levi managed to mash his cloth book with the teething edges into his right eye pretty good, so we had a visit to the hospital in Welland. We had been warned by the locals NOT to go to Niagra, unless you wanted to die. Rumour has it that 8 people have died from cardiac arrests in the last year (which could have been prevented), so we decided NOT to go there. The standing joke is that you go to Niagra Hospital to die. The staff there were great & we were in & out in no time at all. I was still getting him registered & the Doctor had already been in to see him & said that he should be fine, we just might want to invest in a humidifier for Levi to help with dryness of his eyes.

It was really nice being within walking distance to the falls. Now we have seen the falls in Winter, Fall & Spring, we just have to see them in Summer sometime & we will have seen the falls year round. Niagra Falls is really all there is to see in the city. NF is a tourist trap of a town & is a bit of a shit hole, not in the Varanassi (India) type of shit hole, it’s just very commercial & not relaxing at all. Once we had seen the falls we drove through the botanical gardens & out to Niagra On The Lake, which was lovely. NBTL is a little bit like Merrickville (near us) or Handorf & other older style towns, it’s quaint & lovely. It’s very cute that they think of that area as a fantastic wine growing area & advertise it as such, if you haven’t tasted good wine & know no different I guess it might be passable for some. I don’t consider myself to be that much of a wine snob in Australia, but I think we come across as snobs here, it really is awful shitty stuff though.

We had dinner on Saturday night at NF, found a lovely place called Mai Thai, not only was the food fantastic, but the staff were amazing too. They didn’t bat an eye with my allergies & I enjoyed an array of my favourite Thai dishes. I look forward to going back there again.