Yet more mysteries

Why, having tried a mouthful of sand to see what it's like, would a small person decide to eat more?
Why would he want to shove sweetcorn up his nose?
Why is today the day he wanted more sausage, when I had just eaten it all?
Why will he try raw cauliflower but not cooked?
How did he manage to just delete this entire post so I had to start again?!
Why is there so much cat shit in the alleyway behind my house, along which I have to drag my wheelie bin?
How long will it take for the dead mouse, in the covered part of the alleyway behind two houses, to fully decompose, considering it has already been there for three months?
Why isn't tea free on the NHS?
Why did I eat the last two slices of cake in one sitting (Sticky tea loaf from Delia's Frugal Food, highly recommended)?
Why are there always clothes all over my bedroom floor?
Where did this shower of rain come from and why didn't anyone tell me my washing was getting wet?
Why am I always the one who ends up swimming lengths in zig zags trying to avoid bumping into anyone?
Why haven't the health visitors got back to me with an appointment time considering that someone fucked up and didn't tell them we exist anyway?
Why is it apparently easier to say miaow than it is to say cat?

Baked beans and a glass of water...

= one happy toddler.

He decided not to eat the salmon fishcakey nugget things we made for tea. But he had a lot of the accompanying baked beans. Then he put his hand in the bowl and squidged them through his fingers. Then he poured them into his glass of water. As tends to happen with toddler pouring, quite a lot went on the table. He put his hand in the glass and gave them a good mix. Then he poured the mix back into his bowl. As tends to happen with toddler pouring, quite a lot went on the table. And down his front. And into his lap. He poured it back and to, back and to. Most of the water was soon on the table. Fewer and fewer beans went from bowl to glass and back again.

I like to stay and keep him company while he finishes his tea. As he messes about a lot more than me, I tend to finish earlier than him. That's on the occasions when he doesn't decide almost as soon as we sit down that he doesn't really feel like sitting down to eat right now. Anyway, while it was nice to sit quietly for a few minutes, I couldn't stop thinking of the dishes that needed washing and all the packing that needed to be done before we go away tomorrow.

Eventually, he held up his hands and made the noises that mean, please mummy would you wipe off this awful mess; I just don't know where it came from. Then he had a yoghurt. Which he decided to eat with his fingers. I was very glad the plastic cloth was on the table because we had done some painting this morning.

Unexpected reactions to toast

The scenario: Little man is sitting at his breakfast bar (there's only room for one stool) with a cup of milk and bowl of cereal. Mummy is making toast. As she starts buttering it, little man says 'toh, toh'. Mummy says: 'You'd like some toast?' Little man nods. Mummy puts a couple of triangles of toast on a plate for little man and puts them in front of him. Little man wails. Clearly, mummy has done something wrong. She takes the toast away. Little man says 'toh, toh', reaching out his hand towards my plate. I offer him my plate and let him choose a piece of toast. He takes one and eats it.

Then there were the lunch choices:
'Would you like some soup?' (Red lentil, diet fare but tasty. Rejected by the boy, however, the day before.)
'No.'
'Would you like some cheese on toast?'
'No.'
'Would you like some beans?'
'No.'
In the end I gave him some oatcakes, cheese and tomatoes, which he picked at. I don't know how much oatcake ended up in his cup of water because he did it after I'd finished my lunch and was tidying the kitchen.

This evening he picked all the crispy bits off some potato wedges and ate only those bits. He kept biting bits off the mini sweetcorn and chewing them up. Then spitting them out.

I am struggling with the toddler psychology. The wrong-plate-colour tantrums. The getting-set-in-his-ways desire for oatcakes every day.

BLW: A year on

It occurred to me the other day that little man has been eating real food for more than a year now. Well, when the fancy takes him anyway. I've often wondered when you qualify as an 'oldie' on the forum; I think we must be there now.

So here's a round-up of today's eating shenanigans. Little man had a very restless night and was awake early so it was cornflakes (dry) at about quarter to seven, followed by blueberries, followed by a few bites of mummy's toast. And a few slurps of milk.

At Tiny Talk he did his usual trick of flashing a cute smile to get extra biscuits then had a banana too. At the supermarket he wanted to buy a melon, but we were only getting some lunch to share with allgrownup and her boy. Little man did have to have some of the baguette in the car on the way there though. He later tucked into houmous, pasta salad, bean salad, sliced chicken and cherry tomatoes but rejected the Lancashire cheese. Allgrownup's new daughter slept through it in her mummy's sling but got crumbs on her head.

Little man fell asleep in the car on the way home. And stayed asleep. After nearly an hour I got him out of the car thinking that would wake him up but that he had been in the car seat for quite long enough. He went back to sleep in my arms and we both snuggled on the sofa for another hour. Consequently, he was having a snack of raisins at 4.30pm when he woke up, as I started to cook tea.

Tea was a phased affair. He started opening cupboards and demanding breadsticks, so I put on the peas and sweetcorn far too early and we had those first. Ten minutes later potato wedges were ready - he has now decided he eats potato after several months of avoiding it in any form. Ten minutes after that lamb kofta meatballs in tomato sauce from the local butcher's were finally cooked through but he only wanted a couple of mouthfuls by then. Yoghurt for pudding, which went all down the front of his clean jumper as usual; I should know better by now. And a few grapes.

So there you go... one year on and I no longer worry about all the things that used to seem so important: precise timings, quantities, nutritional balance at every single meal, why he won't eat broccoli (A BLW sin), and when on earth he is going to stop making such a bloody mess...

She's trying to poison me

Sir Whingealot Farty Pants here. Mummy is trying to poison me. She gave me chunks of some strange orange squishy stuff for tea with what she claimed was bacon and Parmesan on top. Now I know what bacon and Parmesan look like, and it's nothing like what we had for tea. Anyway, I sensibly filled up beforehand on some seedy things she had roasted in the oven, and some raw beansprouts left over from last night's stir-fry veg mix. Also, I've gone another day without filling my nappy so, frankly, I don't feel like eating much now. My other news today is that I chased some ducks, watched some fish and played with some friends.

Mummy here. Actually it was roasted butternut squash with a topping of creme fraiche, bacon and Parmesan stuck back in the oven until it was all browned and yummy. And my other news is that I think I can actually get a mortgage and have now put in my application. And I'm dreading a repeat performance of the night I had last week with the restless octopus if little man is having tummy issues.

Spuds-u-like?

Salmon, sauteed potatoes with rosemary and courgette and broad beans in garlicky butter. That's what we had for tea. Little man saw me dig up the potatoes and examined them in all their muddy glory. He saw me pick the courgette and he saw me pick and pod the broad beans. Now the theory goes that this means he will be more interested in eating the end product...

While I was cooking he made up a little concoction of his own consisting of the ends of the courgettes, a handful of broad bean skins and a few bits of garlic peel. He stirred these into a mug-full of cold water, then drank the water. He made a grab for the cornflakes, which always happens just before teatime, but luckily was distracted by the discovery that the rock that lives on the kitchen windowledge fits nicely into a ladle.

So we sit down and eat. He stuffs in a load of salmon. He has a second helping of salmon. He puts a piece of courgette in his mouth and immediately spits it out again. Then he tries to get out of his highchair having not touched any of the other food.

'Try some of the potato,' I say. He ignores me. I drag my chair round so I'm next to him instead of facing him and take a piece of his potato. I nibble it. 'Yum yum,' I say. 'These are the potatoes we dug up from the garden.' He takes a piece. He nibbles it. He stuffs it in and proceeds to eat most of the spuds I've given him. I then move on to the broad beans. I eat one. 'Try a bean,' I say, going to eat another one myself. He leans forward and eats the one I'm holding. I proceed to feed him broad beans until they are all gone, at great risk to my fingers now that he has a respectable number of teeth.

Was he waiting for me to check that his potatoes weren't poisoned? Does he like the novelty of being fed after a year of baby-led weaning? A year in which I still haven't worked out how to predict what he will or won't eat on any particular day. He's obviously fickle. Just like mummy.

Thanks to my dad for actually planting the potatoes, broad beans and courgettes, which I would probably have never got round to.

And thanks to Cave Mother for giving me an award! Unfortunately I can't work out how to add a picture anywhere other than at the top of the text, so I can't include the 'One Lovely Blog Award' icon here:

It had to happen sometime

Little man jigged his way right off the edge of the dining table. Bang.

I'm preparing tea at the cooker, I turn round to see he has climbed up on to the table again. He is looking mighty pleased with himself. He does a little stamp, stamp jig. He inches towards the edge of the table and, as I dash over knowing what is about to happen, one foot goes off the edge. He goes crash, bang whallop onto the laminate floor. He howls. We have big cuddles.

Ten minutes later he is tucking in heartily to a large portion of spaghetti bolognese.

He has a few red dotty bits on the side of his forehead and no other visible marks. I assume his appetite means nothing is damaged.

In other news, he has also eaten a big handful of sand at the playground, stuffed as many stones into his mouth as he could fit in the back garden and also eaten half a stick of green chalk.

Yesterday when he started with the stones in his mouth thing, I said 'if you keep on doing that we will have to go inside'. He did. So we did. Today he did the same thing and I decided he could just get on with it. I kept an eye out for signs of choking. But in true BLW fashion he managed not to choke, just spat them all out again eventually. For the BLW record, he has never come anywhere close to choking on anything. And yes, I did find one of yesterday's stones in his nappy this evening.

I'm thinking of re-reading the Continuum Concept to remind myself about how these babies in the jungle who play with sharp knives, roll around on the edge of deep pits and go paddling in the rapids somehow make it to adulthood.

Meanwhile, I now know my period will be arriving soon. As I still have no pin number for my new card, and hence no cash to buy chocolate or obscene amounts of tiramisu, I opted for the only thing I could find in the cupboard. A big spoonful of golden syrup.

An ordinary day

We're finally having an ordinary kind of day. One of those days when I don't have to work, I don't have to go anywhere, we both wake up at home and we will both go to bed at home.

We went to Tesco and both had a snooze in the car park after little man fell asleep on the way there. I had to keep a mental tally of what I was spending as I went round because someone stole my debit card details and it has now been blocked. I had £20 in notes, some assorted coinage and a £4.50 Clubcard voucher. The shopping came to £25. 83. I offloaded quite a lot of copper.

I decided to do some proper cooking because I rarely seem to these days. The lamb curry is now gently bubbling in the slow cooker. Little man wasn't entirely happy about me doing things on the worktop where he couldn't see, so I stood him on a chair and gave him a chopping board and some fake wooden vegetables. I knocked over a jar of cumin seeds. Little man reached out and squealed in an 'I want, I want, I want' kind of way. I gave him a few to try. He wanted more. I gave him more. And more. I gather they're good for the digestive system anyway.

He then went on to munch a lot of the tomato I was chopping, although when he got a bit that had been contaminated with green chilli he was a bit shocked. He was so busy nibbling I decided we'd have lunch on the worktop too. We started off with some green olives with garlic and herbs. He loves them. I had to fight to get any. By the time we got onto the bread and tuna pate he wasn't really that hungry. But he was thirsty and he only had to turn around to get to the sink and play with the taps as I filled his cup.

He is now very messy and quite damp. The curry smells delicious. The chickens are squawking and I think they may have run out of feed. And extraordinarily, we have had very little whinging.

The virtue continues

I have finally mopped the downstairs floors! Believe me, they definitely needed it. Little man tends to drop his food overboard when he is fed up with it. And although I wipe round the highchair after each meal, the floor really needed a proper clean. The weather hasn't helped, with lots of wet and muddy comings and goings from both front and back doors. So armed with my new Magic Mop and rediscovered bucket I set to.

Then of course I had to go and lounge in a hot bath for an hour or so while the floors dried so I didn't mess them up again.

I have got other tedious stuff done today too: new front tyres, brakes checked, wheels balanced, library books returned (such a good job they don't charge fines on children's tickets), top with hole in returned to Debenhams, broached subject of wanting to move house with STBE husband...

And the not so tedious: used Yamo for first time, chased little man around library as he pulled books and DVDs from all the carousels, read the Tractor book (ok, that is starting to come under tedious), found the old computer keyboard in the garage for little man to bang on, found some very nice blackcurrant tea in Somerfield.

Life, and all that.

Wholesome

Nettle soup:

1. Don pink rubber gloves and wander round garden marvelling at the sudden absence of nettles whilst three chickens squawk at you for attention.
2. Wander down road leaving front door open until you find nearest bit of waste ground that doesn't look like it's been contaminated with dog pee.
3. Pick a generous handful of nettle tops. Return home ignoring nosy neighbours who probably think you've finally flipped.
4. Wash thoroughly (the nettles, dear), strip off (the nettles!) stalks and chop leaves roughly.
5. Sweat a diced onion and celery stick slowly in butter til soft.
6. Add nettles and let those sweat a bit. You may now remove the rubber gloves.
7. Add whatever stock you happen to have, I found some proper stuff I had made in the freezer.
8. Simmer for a few minutes then whizz in a blender.
9. Dash outside again to pick a head of wild garlic flowers to garnish.
10. Tuck in. Grated parmesan is nice on top too.

I was surprised how yummy this was. I seem to recall once making nettle tea that tasted very earthy, ie like soil. But this was fresh and zingy and really filling. And nettles are full of wonderful vitamins and minerals.

Now I have to make some when little man is around and see if he will have it from his Doidy cup. He seems generally suspicious of green food. I am really missing him while he spends three nights with daddy. It means I haven't even been able to try out my new slings yet! A Storchenwiege Leo Turkis 4.6m and a Yamo Mocha Flowers. Tomorrow.

Baby-led hunting

Little man has helped himself to the following today: Mini Babybels, cherry tomatoes, a slice of melon, grapes, breadsticks, Boursin cheese, a slice of courgette.

It's a lesson in child psychology. I thought he didn't like the Babybels, but after trying to break into one himself then handing it to me to watch how it was done he wolfed it down. He had also gone off tomatoes, or so I thought, until he could help himself. The slice of melon dripped everywhere and the Boursin was not a hit after he had stuck his finger in it a couple of times.

But apparently everything tastes better if you've hunted it down yourself.

I did have a lock on the fridge after I got fed up of him finding all the semi-open containers and spilling them everywhere. He got very annoyed at first before giving up. Then the lock snapped. For a few weeks he didn't realise but he is now back in there at every available opportunity, throwing jars of mustard and mayo on to the kitchen floor. I think I will just leave him to it and hope he doesn't repeat the time when he smashed a large jar of sun-dried tomatoes in oil.

Custard facepack

The promised BLW post. That's baby-led weaning. No purees, no spoonfeeding, no open-wide-here-comes-the-aeroplane games. Just real food and a baby left to get on with it if they want to.

Over the past few months he has: dipped a duck leg bone into rice pudding; given himself a banana custard facepack; tasted an olive, spat it out, then decided to try another one; rejected Babybels in favour of mature cheddar or Parmesan; dropped salmon down mummy's bra because he was in the sling while she cooked and he wanted the food NOW; eaten raisins that he has hidden under shelves, chairs or kitchen units for goodness knows how long; refused to eat yummy homemade veg burgers; eaten his own body weight in pasta; munched on a red pepper while going round Tesco; and decided that houmous is the best foodstuff in the world.

And I have: learnt not to worry about whether he eats something or how much he has had; learnt to leave him to get on with it; cleaned up hundreds of messy highchair trays and food-splattered floors; come up with a variety of face-washing games to lessen the trauma; got used to eating with him at 5pm; marvelled at him devouring pasta; sighed at him not eating yummy veg burgers; rediscovered houmous; learnt how to peel potatoes with a baby on one hip; pondered the mysteries of child psychology.

I haven't the faintest idea why anyone would turn good food into mush and muck about spooning it into a reluctant child's mouth. But then I have a little fella who really wouldn't have played along with the aeroplane game. He is very stubborn/spirited/bloody-minded (delete according to child-rearing style).