My kid could paint that

Adele's first painting! She did it at playcentre last week. She's a creative genius. What more can I say?

Our lenten project

Today is the first day of lent. I've never really done anything for lent before and to be honest, despite being a Christian all my life I don't think I'd even heard of it till I saw Chocolate!

But this year, at 4 one morning while I was breastfeeding Adele I felt challenged to embark on Our lenten project.

Every day, for the next 46 days, I'm going to read a bible passage, write a reflection and a prayer and publish it on a blog. And I'm inviting others to join me. I've had a few people say they're interested so I'm really excited about the opportunity to create a collaborative space for learning and reflection.

So, day 1 is done. 45 more to go!

She did us proud

I was a bit nervous on Sunday cause my folks were coming for lunch. "What if Adele doesn't eat anything?" I thought to myself. They'll think I'm starving her and tell me to start feeding her up on mush.

But she did us proud.

Demolished a slice of avocado, munched on a stick of tasty cheese, put lots of wee teethy marks in a slice of nectarine, gummied up some bread and had fun picking up cherry tomatoes. Then showed off by drinking lots of water from the sippy cup while sitting on Granddad's lap.

I don't think I've seen her eat so much. Phew!

She seems to be getting the hang of this eating lark now.

She wasn't interested in the breakfast Daddy gave her today but when I was eating my toast a bit later she greedily took a crust, gnawed it till she couldn't anymore (the ends of sticks of food always get stuck in her fist. She hasn't worked out yet how to release them) then demolished another!

Then for lunch she put away a fairly decent amount of cheese and mango and tasted some other stuff.

Interestingly, she loves the spoon. I load it up with food - yoghurt, today's lentil stew, stewed apple, KFC potato and gravy (another story...) hold it out to her and she greedily grabs it and jams it in her mouth. She won't let me do it. But I'm trying to only feed her foods that are normally eaten mashed/pureed. I wouldn't be happy eating pureed beef so why should she?

oh oh oh, exciting news. She's got her pincer grip! Marianne and Joanna came over today and Joanna was eating raisins, I offered one to Adele and she picked it up between thumb and forefinger! She didn't put it in her mouth, and I wasn't going to demonstrate cause I HATE raisins but I was very chuffed with Adele's physical prowess!

Lastly, the KFC story. We picniked at the gardens on Sunday night with people from church. Mike and I got KFC but I forgot to organise anything for Adele (neglectful eh?). So I gave her some of my bread roll. For fun, I dipped a bit in to the potato and gravy for her. A wee while later I look down and there's Adele, with her hand up to her wrist in the potato and gravy pot. She had a ball sticking hands in, mushing it around, rubbing it in her hair, down her front, on her legs, on the picnic mat, on Mummy's legs... I'd forgotten a bib and run out of baby wipes. But she had a great time so I let her go for it. She did enjoy eating it from the spoon too. I did find myself wondering if the gravy had MSG in it though....

Update on sleep

Just thought I'd give an update on sleep. Seems we're over the terrible patch again and back to satisfactory. I think the 'bad' patches come in cycles, probably has to do with growth spurts etc.

So she is settling more quickly again in the evenings, I'm usually outta there by 8 o'clock again. phew! But we'll see - take it one day at a time.

The not so good part is that she wakes at 5.30am now. Bit too early for my liking I'm afraid. Luckily though she is happy to come in to bed with us and feed and lie reasonably quietly for an hour.

I hate that I am so obsessed with sleep. I know that I am more laid back than some - I'm not obsessed about getting her to 'sleep through the night' and yet, sometimes it feels like every waking moment I'm thinking about sleep. It's not so much my sleep I worry about as hers. Ah well, life as a mum I suppose.

Creation a week #5

These flowers are for Adele's room. Recognise the fabric?

Things I'm loving on Friday

I love mothering.com. It's a website based on the american Mothering magazine. They have lots of very interesting articles sourced from old issues of the magazine and have a great online forum. The magazine's philosophy is 'natural parenting' so they all about natural birthing, co-sleeping, babywearing, breastfeeding, green living etc etc. Fun fun fun.

I love how we can hear the neighbours birds singing. They're in a big aviary and add some much needed alternative sounds to our busy street. We don't have many big trees so it's nice to hear something other than cars going by. Oh, now that I think about it - boy aren't those cicadas noisy at this time of year!

I'm loving that Harvey Norman have a special on small soft cover photo albums. When Adele was 3 months old I made an album of her first 3 months through the Harvey Norman website. I was really happy with the result. And now that same album is on special again so I'll have to make the 3-6 month album!

Too soon to say I told you so

I said that it was too soon to say I told you so. And I was right. Sleep has gone back to pot again. Sigh.

She was doing so well there for a couple of weeks but now she's gone back to taking ages (read hours) to settle for the night. She's not too bad once she's asleep. 5-6 hour stretches are common. But I'm getting rather sick of sitting in a small dark room trying to convince an awake baby that she shouldn't be. Yawn.

Must be teething.

Must be cause she's learning to crawl.

Must be cause we've been busy lately.

Must be cause she's been doing lots of talking (the baby babbling type).

There must be a reason...

On a brighter note. Check out this cuteness. She's discovered how to spin the wheels. Weee!

Breakfast this morning

Weetbix, yoghurt and banana.

 

Creation a week #4

Wow! I can't believe I'm up to week 4 already. Well, this week's creation has been this new blog.

I had had other plans for creations this week but they just didn't happen. Next week?

But I did spend a significant amount of my spare time creating Silver Jandals so it does count!

An apple a day...

I've noticed with this baby-led weaning that Adele prefers eating my food to her own. I've heard that this is actually an instinctive thing cause if mum is eating it then it must be safe.

So I've noticed now that pretty much any time I am having a snack she wants some. It's really making me think about only eating healthy snacks (and saving the ice cream for once she's in bed!)

So, we share an apple together most days. She's getting pretty good at using her two bottom teeth to scrape bits off.

Things I'm loving on Friday

I'm loving Picnik. It's a photo editing site thats simple and easy. Everyone else in the world probably already knew about it but I've only just discovered it. It's great for putting text on photos and adding effects like rounded corners. I made the header for this blog in Picnik.

From this:

To this:

I'm also loving TVNZ on demand. It means that even though I miss Shortland Street 'cause I am putting Adele to bed. I can catch up on episodes later. I tend to do Shorties marathons and watch a number of episodes at a time. I know, I know, I'm a sad-o.

And finally this week I'm loving that the school term has started again. I'm not loving that Mike has gone back to work but I am loving that all our activities are up and running again! Yay! I was starting to get bored. It's all happening next week - our first swimming lesson, homebirth coffee group, La Leche League and Playcentre. Woo hoo!

Sandpit fun at playcentre

Adele and I go to a SPACE session at Playcentre. SPACE is a programme for little bubbas and we've been going since Adele was 2 1/2 weeks old.

Today we went out and played in the sandpit.

Adele was a lot more civilised than most of the boys who consumed significant quantities of sand. Instead, she very capably picked up a water hose and drank from it.

From then on, it was her personal water supply. No one else got a look in.

Baby-led weaning

We've started Adele on real food. But as babyledweaning.com says "the mush stops here". Yup. We're not doing purees....

The idea is that babies are actually capable of chewing and digesting normal food at around 6 months. This coincides with when they're trying to put everything in site in to their gobs.

So you just give them something which won't break off and become a choking hazard (like raw carrot) and let them go for it.

Adele is loving it! She has a ball with her food. Not a lot actually gets eaten but she is being exposed to so many different flavours and textures.

Banana is a firm favourite. We keep the skin on so it is easy to hold on to but expose enough for her to get her chompers in to.

Cucumber is a firm favourite too. We cut a slice dig a hole in the middle and pass it over. Not much of this goes down but she loves sucking and licking it. I expect she enjoys the cool feeling and flavour.

Hmmm... this looks interesting.

Oh yikes! What's this new flavour? I think Mummy has poisoned me! Help!

Actually, that was pretty good. I might have me some more.

Watermelon goes down easily.

Yoghurt. She is used to feeding herself now so she likes to feed herself with her spoon. I load it up and she takes aim for her mouth. Prising it out of her mits to load it up again takes a bit of work tho!

Hopefully my new book on baby-led weaning is coming tomorrow so I'll blog more about it another time.

Creation a week #3

This week I made a simple cushion cover. Really. Simple. Only took a few minutes. Well maybe an hour by the time I fluffed around getting the sewing machine out etc. I just used a simple (did I say that already?) envelope pattern so that I didn't have to worry about zips (don't know how) or buttons (baby might eat them). And voila!

Oh yeah, forgot to say where the fabric came from. It's a Von Trapp cushion. Yup. Made from my old curtains. Yup. Just like The Sound of Music. Watch out Adele...

But i have to admit it is a bit boring. Perhaps some applique? Right off to google applique.... what is it?.. how do i do it?