Current Debate...

...in our household is:

Does E look like my dad?

Or is it just that my dad looks like a giant scaled up baby?

My dad is bald, has a big round face with chubby cheeks and jowls, and a bit of a belly.  All in all, good baby characteristics.  

We looked at old baby photos and we realised that I looked just like my dad as a baby, but then that just brought us back round to the question - did I look like my dad, or is it that my dad just looks like a giant scaled up baby.

We're veering towards my dad looking like a man sized baby.

xx

Colour In

Over the next few weeks I thought I would run a new photography series here on the blog called Colour In, that you can join in with too if you like. If you're American you can even call it "Color In" if you'd prefer, I won't mind ;)

Every week I'll post photos on a theme of a particular colour.  I thought it would be fun and good motivation for me to get back into taking photos of things other than just my baby!

This week it's red (of course!).

Here are my red photos:

My dala horse - a 99p charity shop find!

E's toy crab.  We call him Crab C. Nesbitt (which may only make sense to you if you're from Scotland)!

 Fresh local strawberries.

Biscuit tin.

Utensil holder and pot.

Robot and recipe tin.

Next week I'll be posting photos on the colour yellow.

If you want to take part this week then remember to come back and leave the link in the comments below so I can have a little look at your post! 

You can post on any day of the week - it doesn't have to be on a particular day :)  And feel free to post as many or as few photos as you like.

xx

Warning, this post is pretty in-tents

Hmm, I guess that joke doesn't really work when you write it down...!  :)  Oh well, bear with me.  I promise no more tent jokes!

We're big fans of camping in the Red Boots household.  A few years ago Boyfriend and I drove round New Zealand for 3 months, camping as we went.  I guess you have to be pretty into camping to camp for three months.  I'll let you into a little secret - we didn't camp all the time.  Sometimes we gave ourselves a break by staying in cabins.  Which sounds nice, but in New Zealand are just sheds with a bed in them.  Sometimes a fridge if we were lucky.  And once a toilet, because we were feeling fancy.  

We tried to go on a camping holiday last year, to the Isle of Arran, on the west coast of Scotland (yup, whilst 5 months pregnant - we are that into camping!).  But then we got rained off so we stayed at home.  For a fleeting moment we thought about pitching the tent in our garden and camping in our garden but we drew the line at that (we're not THAT into camping!)

Now with a baby in our lives we'd still like to be able to camp, but with a lot more amenities to hand than some of the camp-sites we stayed on in New Zealand.  We'd also like better weather than the west coast of Scotland endures (I was going to say enjoys, but endures is definitely more the word!), and plenty of child friendly activities available for when E is a bit older.  

Boyfriend had many a childhood holiday in Devon, and assures me I'd love it.  So we've started looking into camping in Devon.  

Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks look pretty amazing for Devon holidays:

Twitchen House

Being in Devon, Woolacombe Bay enjoys pretty much the best weather in the UK, and their four parks each have superb amenities, great facilities for families, and all their parks are located in some really lovely countryside.  Woolacombe Beach has also been voted best beach in Britain for 2012 so you can't get much better than that really!

xx

*Although this is a sponsored post all words and opinions are my own*

The internet has spoken...

So you guys really don't like posts about baby stuff then?!  Point noted, I'll refrain from posting about babies again :) 

To make amends here's a photo of my Lily bird taking on our sausage dog draught excluder:

Hopefully that is more to your taste!

Happy Friday everyone - have a great weekend!  What are you up to this weekend?  We are having a curry and beer night tonight and then doing some more DIY (it's never ending).  I'm also hopefully catching up with an old friend who is in town from Nepal.   

xx

Musings on Motherhood

Although I don't always post about babies and motherhood, I thought I would post a little something about solid foods, which may hopefully be of use to someone.

I started introducing solids to E about two weeks ago.  We're going down the baby led weaning route.  The whole premise of baby led weaning is instead of giving your baby purées at 4 months, then building up to lumpier foods, you wait until 6 months and start directly on solid foods - giving your baby the food to hold and eat by themselves.  After a few months they are then able to eat what you are having for breakfast, lunch and dinner (as long as you don't add salt and sugar to your food - which I don't tend to do anyway) - which sounds pretty good to me.  I remember being the fussiest eater ever as a child, and the hassle that caused my mum, so anything that helps avoid this happening to E is very much welcomed!

We were going to hold off until the 6 month mark but she got so excited when she saw us with food (practically hyperventilating and lunging at our plates) that, after discussing it with my Health Visitor, we decided to start early - at 5.5 months.  So far we've stuck to fruits, vegetables and porridge made with breast milk.  As E isn't quite 6 months there are lot of foods to avoid (basically anything that isn't fruit, vegetables, or porridge), but after 6 months she can have pretty much anything.  

As good as it sounds, I have to say it's been a very steep learning curve.  The other day, for example, I learned that galia melon and watermelon are good baby-led weaning foods, but honeydew melon a definite no-no this early on.  It's going to be quite a while before I try again with honeydew.  

I also found that raw apple is a no no.  I thought it would be ok for her to chomp on as she doesn't have any teeth, so there was no danger of breaking chunks off of the apple.  No chunks did break off, but the fact that she was trying to eat but no food was coming apart from a tiny dribble of apple juice just frustrated her no end and I ended up with a very very angry and upset baby.

It's also not for the faint hearted.  Used to a sole diet of milk, E now has to get used to swallowing food.  After every other mouthful she gags.  Every time she gags, I panic (but try to remain calm and smiling).  Instead of intervening at the slightest sign of a gag, I count to ten, by which time she has managed to work through whatever she was gagging on and is happy to keep on eating.  But my heart stops every time.  I spoke to my Health Visitor at length about baby led weaning before I started offering her any food and she taught me how to distinguish between gagging and choking, and what to do if choking ever does occur, so I do know what to do.  It just doesn't stop me panicking!  I'm hoping the gagging stage passes very soon otherwise I'll be grey-haired before the year is out!

I have found that a lot of the food good for the early stages of baby led weaning is quite slippy (soft ripe fruit and well cooked vegetables).  So slippy that it just slips right out of her hand when she tries to hold it.  Which wasn't particularly useful.  To get round this I cut food into chip shapes then cut little rivets into it, so that it resembles a crinkle cut chip, which seems to help a little with holding.  I've just purchased a crinkle cutter that should also help.

Another trick I have just learned is for slippy things like avocado and mango is to keep the skin on, and cut them into orange shaped segments.  By keeping the skin on this helps give her a good grip.

Other times I use a mesh feeder, which is good for extra slippy foods like banana.  At first she seemed frustrated that not much was coming out of the feeder (she has a big appetite!) so I started spoon feeding her, but she didn't like that, so we stuck with the mesh feeder and now she is a lot more efficient with it.

I'm pleased to say that (touch wood) I haven't found anything that she doesn't like so far (apart from the raw apple).  She's happy to eat anything I give her. 

And in spite of the mild panic, I have to say I'm very much enjoying this stage of her life.  Her little face when she tastes something new for the first time is pretty amazing.  It's really something quite special to see her explore the world of taste and texture.

Did you baby led wean?  If so, do you have any tips to add?

xx

Snippets...

...from a wet Wednesday afternoon.

Growing up Wednesday was always one of my favourite week days.  My dads one day off.  We'd always do fun stuff on a Wednesday, like pick berries, walk the dog to remote waterfalls or take the metal detector to old castles in the hope of finding buried treasure.  When E is a bit older we'll do all of these kinds of things are more.  Hopefully not just on a Wednesday. 

Right now though, E is asleep and I'm sitting with a cup of coffee. Angry black clouds are rolling past. There is a faint pitter patter of rain on the window. A wood pigeon is sitting on my roof, softly cooing "ru-hoo ru ru-hoo" to its mate. It's coo echoes down my chimney - it's almost like a lullaby.  I've just toasted some olive bread so the house has the most wonderful aroma.

Half an hour ago I took some photos round my living room:

 

 I thought I'd killed this orchid plant last year.  Imagine my surprise when suddenly lots of pink flowers popped up.

 Russian dolls on my mantlepiece.  

Abandoned toys.  The little Sophie is E's favourite.  

This is Muffin the bird.  Possibly E's favourite toy ever (and our least favourite).   It belonged to her big cousin before it was passed on to us.  Muffin sings in a very annoying voice, and dances too.  Unfortunately Muffin's batteries are running out...! 

xx

ps:  I've got a fun blog series coming up that you can take part in too if you want.  Keep your eyes peeled!

Sigh

I don't exactly have a glittering social life at the moment.  My last 'shindig' was a 90th birthday party.  And with a baby that quite often refuses a bottle, and a 5am baby shaped alarm clock, I don't have any fancy nights out planned any time soon.

So it's safe to say I don't really need these beauties:

Jazzhand Shoes from Topshop

But man, do I want them.  If the shoe gods are listening I'll have them in a UK size 6 please!

xx

The eternal debate...

...of digital versus film photography.  A mother's perspective:

Me aged 5ish

If I were to count them there are maybe 60 photos of me as a child.  I think there are few reasons for this.  I think 30 years ago photography was considered an expensive hobby.  Being a family of five, with my parents having their own business, money was sometimes tight.  Consequently there is one roll of film from when I was born, a few photos taken at special occasions, a roll of film taken around the house (perhaps trying out a new camera?), and the rest taken on our yearly holiday.  I'm also the third of three children, so I can imagine my parents, juggling three children and holding down a business and both working full-time, had little time or inclination to get the camera out.  

I really treasure these photos, and even though there are not that many, I enjoy looking through them.  Looking at myself as a baby, my sisters as children, and my parents not much older than me, but with three children in tow.  These few photos say so so much to me.  

Then I think about my little E, and what she will think of her digital baby photos.  Because digital photography is so easy and limitless in terms of money and effort (no trips to photo labs), it seems that every other week I am having to transfer my photos of E off of my camera and my phone on to my computer because I've used up all of the space on the memory card or my phone's internal memory.  I could not begin to tell you how many photos of her we have taken.  I could not begin to tell you how many times I have taken a photo of her, proclaimed "this is my favourite photo ever" and then the following week proclaimed the exact same statement at yet another photo of her.  

I take so many photos I think, because I'm terrified of forgetting.  E is growing at a rate of knots.  She gets less and less baby-like by the day and frankly it's terrifying, and so I feel compelled to try and memorise every detail in case I'll forget each precious stage in her life.  I know it's not likely to forget the most precious things in your life - I can vividly recall the first time I met Boyfriend nearly ten years ago (down to even what he was wearing); our first kiss; baking in my dear grandmother's kitchen, my grandmother who died more than twenty years ago; and many other precious times in my life.  Yet still I persist.  

I love digital photography, I really do (although I do think it's killed the anticipation of waiting to see your photos), and I'm not saying we should all go back to exclusively using film.  I just think I'm going to have to wean myself off of taking a photo a second of her, and adopt a film photographer's perspective that every photo is precious rather than easily deleted if I don't like it.  And rather than worry about capturing the minutia of her life, I should instead spend more time enjoying the moment and being fully present, without the camera in my hand.  Otherwise I fear that wading through all of these photos will become a never ending, unenjoyable chore for her.  

xx

Sofa of My Dreams

We're saving up our pennies for this bad boy:

Isn't it a beauty?  From made.com

I love Chesterfields but am not overly keen on leather sofas (too cold in winter, too sticky in summer), so a fabric Chesterfield is right up my street.

At the rate at which we can save now maybe it'll be ours in about 4 years time, but it's good to have a goal, right?!

xx