kids

Food: Gâteau au yaourt

It’s been a while since The Great British Bake Off has brought weekly joy to my life and of course, baking inspiration. The arrival of January,  in which so many want to watch their weight, has brought my motivation to make cake to a low point. Gâteau au yaourt doesn’t count in my mind as it contains yoghurt which is obviously healthy!

The more astute among you would have noticed from last week’s ‘day in the life of’ post that I’m currently reading ‘French kids don’t throw food.’ Although I’ve read this before,  as I approach weaning with Thomas, I’m keen to remind myself of different cultures and the way they do things. This book, written by  Pamela Druckerman (an American) , is an account of living in Paris and the many differences she encountered in how people raise their children. It’s a good read and a nice reminder that there is not one ‘right’ way and that’s it’s good to keep an open mind.

In one chapter she noticed at a friend’s house that her small daughter was making cake by herself. Whilst the age wasn’t specified, I thought it would be nice to see how Ben and Katie would get on with her suggested recipe for – Gâteau au yaourt aka yoghurt cake.

Aside from being something of an experiment with the kids, I also wanted to make it dairy free so decided to sub in coconut milk yoghurt for full-fat dairy yoghurt. I have no idea if this was the cause of things not going quite to plan:Read More »Food: Gâteau au yaourt

Conversations with Katie (aged 3)

I am feeling incredibly blessed to be having time away from work, not only to look after Thomas but to be able to see Katie grow too. I’m very conscious that both of the kids will have to be in full-time childcare and that I will miss so much. I’m just trying to soak up every minute that I can and not be too sad at what I will be missing in the future.

Katie is a little chatterbox and I love the snippets that she comes out with. I often have no idea where her imagination has picked them up from but there’s certainly variety. Here are a few of my favourites from the past few weeks that I don’t want to forget:Read More »Conversations with Katie (aged 3)

The Philosophy Series: Epicurus edition

Epicurus was a 3rd century Greek Philosopher who is interesting purely because of the way that his ideas have pervaded philosophy throughout the ages. Only small fragments of his writings have made it through the channel of history, yet we know quite a lot about his life and his ideas because of his influence on others.

Epicurus is our philosopher for Christmas because he spent much of his life considering what it meant to be happy. He believed that we should not feel bad about our own happiness and indeed that we should chase the things that give us pleasure. Whilst that may conjure ideas of great feasts, flowing gin and tonic and piles of new books – he actually followed a very simple life, supping on water, bread, and a few olives.Read More »The Philosophy Series: Epicurus edition

Food: Free from Fairy Cakes

I’m not about to start disclosing my daughter’s full medical history, which would be long, boring and a bit grim at times, but suffice to say – she has a number of food intolerances. At one point we were entirely off dairy, but had begun to re-introduce it in the hope that her gut had matured a little more. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to have been the case and we’ve been referred back to the children’s hospital again. Whilst we begin the months of waiting for an appointment, we will need to manage Katie’s diet as closely as possible but that’s no excuse to exclude fairy cakes!

After keeping a food diary for the last couple of weeks, we’ve decided to not only cut all dairy again but also to try and cut her gluten intake. Supermarkets have such superb ‘free-from’ sections now, this isn’t actually that much of an inconvenience. However, it’s still fun to do baking at home and pretty easy with help from Doves Farm – the provider of all good gluten-free cooking goodies in this house!Read More »Food: Free from Fairy Cakes

Bunny Hop

Style: Bunny hop

I was a little in awe meeting the fabulous Julia Murray this week and have really been looking forward to introducing her to you, along with her fabulous new venture – Bunny Hop!

Bunny Hop is an online boutique that stocks fun, functional clothing and accessories for kids, from 0-6. Rather than bowing to the expectations of the mass market it aims to bring high quality, natural products that children will enjoy wearing. I’ve learnt over the years that both Ben and Katie will not wear something, no matter how expensive or ‘designer’, if it’s not comfortable or does not allow play, so I very much was drawn to this aim.Read More »Style: Bunny hop

The 5 Best Wooden Toys for Toddlers

It is so easy to amass a huge number of toys – with them being so readily available in supermarkets for low prices, I often found myself caving into demands and buying something thinking ‘it’s only a couple of quid.’ But the problem with this approach is that those toys slowly built up. They were quickly forgotten about and shoved into boxes in an effort to tidy, but over time those boxes began to spill over.

I found trying to do a tidy-up with the kids impossible, both Ben and Katie would claim the long forgotten tat as ‘the best toy ever’and play with it for 5 minutes before it was abandoned, usually broken or with bits missing.Read More »The 5 Best Wooden Toys for Toddlers

Parenting: gender stereotyping

I have massive issues with the vast majority of marketing aimed at parents today. Any parent who has tried to find something remotely gender neutral in a typical high street store will surely understand my concern.  If you have a boy, then expect him to be dressed in blue, grey or brown garments adorned with dinosaurs or digger trucks. He will play with toy cars or trains, and if he goes against the grain and displays imagination, you can provide him with a toy tool kit.

At the other end of the spectrum, a girl will be typically be dressed in pink or lilac. If other colours are included, then it will probably have some kind of lovely animal or bird on it. Nothing with sharp teeth. Her toys will be dolls, cooking equipment or creative materials involving glitter. If, heaven forbid she picks up something blue or resembling a mode of transport, expect the question – ‘Oh, is she a Tomboy?’ As if choosing something not marketed towards girls somehow renders her masculine.

Read More »Parenting: gender stereotyping

Food: Comforting Chocolate Brownies

Bleak, wet weather calls for one thing… Comfort food! Ordinarily, I’d be heading to my local Starbucks for a latté and chocolate fudge brownie but as it’s ‘No Spend November’ I needed to get a bit more creative with stuff lurking in my cupboards!

Chocolate brownies are really pretty simple in terms of ingredients – all you need are eggs, butter, flour, sugar and of course chocolate. I also like to add vanilla essence and chopped walnuts but as I didn’t have these in store, I figured it doesn’t make that much difference! Cooking chocolate is obviously very bitter so a lot of recipes call for a lot of sugar to balance this out but I’ve found no one has ever complained when I’ve reduced the sugar – kids included!Read More »Food: Comforting Chocolate Brownies

Style: The opinion of a three-year old

My daughter Katie has very set ideas about what constitutes ‘style’ in that on any given day she is absolutely determined that she will wear what she wants to wear. On a very odd occasion, this will match what I want. On a good day, I would describe her as independent of thought, or strong-minded. On a bad? Downright stubborn.

On Wednesday, we were having one of ‘those’ days. Rather than having her usual fruit and toast for breakfast, Katie wanted sandwiches. Then at lunch, she insisted that she needed her cereal bar before her bread and butter – after I caved in and said she could eat them in whatever order she wanted to – she ate the bread first.

I knew that to leave the house on schedule, I would need to start the process in plenty of time. Forty minutes before the starting time of her Art class, I said it was time to get dressed. She had noticed that Thomas and her Grandma were both wearing blue and white stripes (by coincidence – we’re not that weird) so she wanted to as well. Thinking this was an easy request, I set out her Polarn O’Pyret striped top, navy bubble skirt, some M&S grey tights and then her new boots from the Treehouse in Stockbridge. In my opinion, this, with a coat, was suitable for the weather, easy to wash (so fine for art) and she’d look presentable.Read More »Style: The opinion of a three-year old

3 steps to keeping motivated

Update on the quest to lose the mummy tummy: this week was my second session with Susan from Streamline Personal Training. It kind of felt like I had only just recovered from the last one but then time just seems to be flying far too fast! This week we went through a series of circuits targeting key areas such as aerobic fitness, upper body strength and core muscles. At times, I did feel quite disheartened by the amount that I couldn’t do: at one point I was laying flat on my back trying to lift my feet off the floor. My brain kept saying lift but my feet just were NOT budging. I couldn’t do it and it was evident that the core strength wasn’t there. What I needed was to focus on my ‘fitness motivation!’

Aside from Susan encouraging me, I could hear in the back of my head my old cello teacher encouraging me. He always said that you must say that you can’t do it YET. Keeping the knowledge that you absolutely will be able to with practice and perseverance.

With that in mind, I thought that this week I would write about my three steps for keeping motivated:

Read More »3 steps to keeping motivated