The Paranoid Parent

About a month ago Daisy started to cough a wee bit.  Hack hack.  Hack hack.
No biggie I thought, no reason to get stressed.  Probably just caused by extra saliva since she's teething and it'll be catching in her throat.  All good.  Nothing to worry about here.  Let's not get paranoid Kellie.

And so I didn't.  Well, I tried my best.

You see I'm not a fan of being paranoid about every little thing when it comes to child raring.  The Plunket brochure said puree but I went with chunky mash and Daisy preferred it.  Didn't choke.  Didn't freak out.

I didn't have her in woollen hats and socks from day dot and she came out of the newborn stage fine.

I don't use eco friendly laundry powder (have you seen the price of it!?!?) and her skin isn't ravaged by redness.

And the only time she wears organic cotton is when someone else buys it for her.

I'm just not that paranoid that every little thing has to be perfect or she'll die.  But then there was that cough ... hack hack, hack hack hack.

Fast forward to the day before yesterday and that cough intensified a little.  Hack hack hack hack hack. It's time to call Plunketline.  They put me onto Healthline.  Who advise a trip to the doctor within the next three days.

Paranoia strikes.  What if she's dying?  What if her lungs aren't right?  I'm the worst mother ever!!  Damn my lackadaisical parenting!

The Doctor:  Her tonsils are slightly inflamed she may have had a touch of tonsillitis.  Keep breastfeeding as long as you can.

Me to Doctor:  Damn right I'll keep breastfeeding as long as I can, it's great for my weight!

So what did I learn from all this?  Well I guess there's being a paranoid parent.  Then there's being a parent who knows when to be paranoid.

What's that Mummy?  You DON'T wash my clothes in eco-friendly powder?  You mean cow!

Hi Baby!

When my wee girl was a few weeks old she used to laugh in her sleep.  Big happy hearty laughs.  It used to wake me up and give me a 'what the?' moment as she never ever laughed out loud while she was awake.  And although I was sure I was hearing what I was hearing, I didn't really believe she could laugh in her sleep until one day she'd fallen asleep on my knee then suddenly grinned and giggled her wee sleeping head off.

Then last night I woke up to hear this loud "Hi!!!!" coming from the bassinet beside me.

"Hi!!!!"  Clear as a bell.  Not a 'iiiii', there was an 'h' preceding the 'iiiii!!!'.

What the????

I went back to sleep and woke up quite sure it must've been a dream.  (I've often gotten up in the middle of the night to answer the door dead sure someone had knocked on it only to find the stoop empty, so imagining dream stuff is real is not unusual for me.)

Anyway later this afternoon my husband mentioned he'd woken up to hear Daisy saying "Hi!!!!".

I wasn't dreaming!

The wee dot (four months and one week old) spoke in her sleep!

So now I have a theory that babies dream about doing stuff the way we dream about doing stuff.  You know, like how I once dreamt about flying superman style. Which gave me a rude awakening when I punched my fist into the wall as I shot forward in my dream.  I didn't break the wall.  Or my fist.

I guess what I'm trying to get at (in my long winded completely unscientific way) is that Daisy was dreaming about saying "Hi!" to us and actually said it out loud in her sleep.  And that babies use dreams to get ready to say and do stuff for real before that really do say and do stuff for real in the real middle-of-the-day world.  (Most convoluted hypothesis ever.)

This theory is based on two things a baby has done, but there are millions of test subjects out there and I can't help but wonder if any other mums have had that same kind of experience with their wee ones ...

No Internet? No worries.

I've just spent 24 hours without the interwebs to keep me company.

I was left with very idle hands so I thought 'I know, I'll bake bread!'

Problem.  My no fail bread recipe is saved in my favourites on my web browser which requires the internet for me to see it.

Solution.  I'll wing it!!!

So I got down to business doing my best remembering to make a loaf of bread.  As I had time to ponder I pondered about how much fun it was watching the yeast do it's thing ...

Little yeasty bubbles ...

Grow ...

 And grow some more ...

Til they're all puffy and floopy and ready to be mixed with flour and made into dough.

Now usually I'm a big fan of kneading my own dough but I decided it was time to test out the hook on 'the beast'.  Look at this photo - all menacing like and beasty!!

Now look at it knead!!

And knead!!

Knead my pretty!!!

Then after a goodly amount of rising and then baking in the oven this came out ....

And it tasted mighty fine ...

PS.  No internet no worries?  Pfft.  I was a wreck!

I Am In Love

I am in love ... and for once this is not a blog post about my daughter (mostly).

It's about THIS:

The Breville Planetary Mixer BEM800.  My MacDaddy (if I chose to ignore the KitchenAid mixer, which I do, but only because I can't afford one of those) Mixer.

It arrived today after I bought it off TradeMe for an exceptionally good price - nearly half of the usual retail price.  Happy days.

It's so beautiful.  So shiny.  So solid.  I'm completely in love.  And I feel about the Breville mixer much how I felt about my daughter when she first arrived.  I'm afraid to touch it in case I break it.

So for three hours now it has sat on my kitchen bench waiting for me to use it.  And I'm terrified.  I want to bake a cake but I'm paralysed to do so.  A loaf would be lovely but I can't seem to make my hands move the mixer to the electrical outlet.

And so it sits and waits.  Like a starving child on a Worldvision advert.

At least it has a nice view.

The Art of Waking Up

When was the last time you really enjoyed waking up?

I don't know about you but until recently the moment my alarm went off I was a) out of bed and in the shower in a blink of an eye all geared up to do whatever had to be done that day whether it be work/housework/visiting/shopping ... or I would b) hit the alarm's snooze button the second it went off then spend the next 10 minutes semi sleeping while dreading the inevitable return of the beep beep beep.

Either way it wasn't a very satisfying way to wake up.

Then came along Miss Daisy and she taught me how to enjoy waking up again.

When Miss Daisy wakes up she slowly starts to stir.  Her head moves this way and that.  Her eyelids slowly flutter open before slowly fluttering shut again.  She reaches one hand up and stretches before lowering it again.  Then the other hand rises up to stretch, then is lowered again.  Then they're both brought up for a stretch and at the same time her legs stretch out.  And then she opens both eyes.

She looks well rested.  She looks peaceful.  She looks good.  And if she catches my eye as I gaze down at her she smiles.

So instead of waking up and rushing rushing rushing I now take the time to stretch, to slowly awaken my body to a new day.  It's a little bit of bliss in an otherwise busy day.

Born to Pose

The other day my little miss was looking extra cute (in my eyes anyway) whilst sleeping in her car seat.   So I thought I'd better get a couple of pics for posterity.

I picked the camera up and the flash thingy, realising it was a bit dim, popped up and BAM the little miss smiled.

It was like she knew a camera was trained on her.  Here's proof ...

I couldn't believe my eyes!  She even held the smile for three pictures.  And then she got grumpy and did the 'no to the paparazzi' hand thing.

I spoke to a few other mums and dads and they'd had the same experience.  The camera comes out, the baby smiles.  It got me wondering ...

... are all babies born Kardashians?

In other words, are they all born to see or hear a camera and immediately put on their best face?  Lord knows you don't see ugly baby pictures that much these days.  Although that's probably thanks to that delightful wee trash can symbol featured on cameras and computers everywhere.

I think I'll miss ugly baby photos though.  In the olden days there were lots of them.  It's what you got when you had a film that took 24 photos and once taken they could never be taken back.  And considering the cost of processing you weren't exactly going to throw those babies in any trash can.

I won't lie, the little miss has had a few ugly photos taken so far.  Clearly my fault, I haven't got her angles or the light right.  Bad Mum.  But I'm going to keep them and in 20 years and 10 months I'll pop them right smack bang in the middle of a photo board, right in the middle of all those Kardashian-styled posed photos, for all her friends to see.  Evil Mum (mwahahahahaha).

Night Rambles

The joy of a newborn is the middle of the night feedings.
Mine take place at around 2 and 5am.
And for whatever reason I struggle to get back to sleep after the 2am one.
My mind goes 'Hey!  You're awake!  Excellent!  Let's think about stuff and things!'

Sometimes it's mundane ... 'what do we need to buy in the online grocery shop? ... olive oil, flour, eggs, chocolate ... bananas would be good, but not if they come too yellow.  Yellow bananas are awful. Yuck.  Oooh, chips are good too.  And chocolate.  Hold on, you're meant to be eating healthy food in order to nurture your baby.  So add some spinach in there.  But get lollies too.  Don't forget the chocolate'.

Sometimes I hark back to torturous times past 'remember when you said that to so-and-so?  God you were a cow. How can anyone like you?  Sure you were 16 and you've improved as a person since then but really, what a cow.  And what about when you got drunk and said/did that?  How embarrassing.  You really should be ashamed of yourself.  Yes it was 10 years ago, but really, you ought to have known better'.

Then one night after putting my beautiful (yes I'm totally biased) daughter to bed where she drifted back off to sleep as I gazed at her adoringly (when I should have been drifting off to sleep myself) my brain came up with this gem "Oh gosh, she's lovely.  She's growing up so fast though.  It won't be long before she no longer wants to nuzzle into your neck when she needs comforting.  She won't find your silly dances and songs funny.  And she'll discover that Daddy is heaps more fun then mummy.  You'll just have to make another one won't you?  What a great idea!  Another wee baby.  What will you call it?  Now if it's a boy you've got the name all sorted since you didn't get to use it this time.  But what if you have another wee girl?  What will you call her.  You should still honour your side of the family.  How about Henrietta Hailes?  Hmmm, maybe not Henrietta, but it would be nice for you to acknowledge both your grandads.  You could shorten it to Etta.  And you walked up the aisle to Etta James' At Last.  So that'd be nice too.  Etta Hailes as the first and middle name.  Perfect.  Excellent.  So when are you going to make the next baby?'  Then sanity grips.  'What!  Hold on!?!  Back the truck up!  I still remember the pain of childbirth!  Sorry hypnobirthing book but you were wrong, it HURT.  No babies.  Not now.  Not for a long time.  Not until I forget the flippin' pain of having the first one.  What are you on??  Oh my giddy...'

WAAAAHHHHHH!!!

And there goes the 5am wake up call.  Lucky I'm awake.

An unpregnant pause.

Last time I blogged I was carrying a little human inside of me.
Now I'm still carrying a little human.  But not inside of me.

I carry her to her nursery to be changed.
I carry her to her bassinet by our bed to go beddybyes.
I carry her when she's fussing.
I carry her when she's really upset.
I carry her when she is bored of the usual sights and is curious to see more.

Hopefully I'll help her carry herself with dignity throughout life.

Stone the crows Curtis!

Apparently when your're preggo you get all nesty.  Apparently that means you clean everything in sight.
I hate cleaning.  I'd even go as far as to say that I love germs.  And if you clean you don't have germs.  And if you don't have germs how do you have an amazing immune system?  So I clean only when necessary and revel in the knowledge that my immune system kicks arse.  (Let's ignore the fact I've had two colds this year - better yet, let's blame it on having a lowered immune system which apparently happens when you're pregnant - ACTUALLY imagine how many more colds I'd have had if I DIDN'T have an aversion to cleaning away germs?!?!!?)

Yeah, there's probably some scientist out there who'd tell me I'm wrong about my cleaning theory, but let's ignore them for the purpose of this blog post.

ANYWAY ... so whilst there's been no nesting of the cleaning variety I have suddenly kicked into high gear with my baking.  Which was handy as I had a baby shower the other day and held a high tea - lots of cooking went on.  I probably should have taken pictures.  Ah well.  It was good though.  I ate my baby's weight in food.  In fact double that.

Today I baked a recipe by the rather dishy Curtis Stone - corn and bacon muffins.  What I love most about this recipe is that it uses bacon fat.  BACON FAT!!

Here's a picture of how they turned out ... (I really need to get a new camera, my one never does the food pictures justice - imagine them looking more goldeny)

Curtis suggests teaming the muffin with herb butter, but I kept it real slathering it in good old fashioned plain butter - and it was special (light and fluffy, super flavoursome, with a slight shock of heat from the cayene, yum scrum!).

I'm meant to be freezing these for post-baby-i'm-too-exhausted-to-cook-food - but I don't think they're going to last that long.

Oh - here's the recipe if you fancy making some bacony fatty goodness muffins yourself ... http://www.curtisstone.com/Recipes/Snacks/Corn-and-Bacon-Muffins-with-Herb-Butter.aspx

A stunning mistake.

The other night I could see a beautiful sunset was afoot.

Grabbing my camera I quickly rushed outside to take some snaps only to find two big fir tree thingies were in my way of the sun.  Grrrr!  They're coming down I tell you!  This summer!  Sorry birdies. 

Anyway I was going through the pictures I took and I came across this one ... and you know, I think it's beautiful.  I love the colour and the cabbage tree (well, it might not be a cabbage tree but I don't know what else it could be as I'm no garden whizz) ... it all just feels so Kiwi.  

Macarons are not Macaroons.

I love macaroons.
All that chocolaty biscuity coconuty goodness.
Yum.
They were such a treat when you were a kid.  A change from chocolate chippies or krispie biscuits.  Up there with Mallowpuffs.

Even as an adult I still find myself feeling decadent when buying them.

Then, along came macarons!  Pretty dainty pastel coloured things filled with exotic flavourings.  Fancy!!

And even more expensive than macaroons!

I had to try them.  And try them I did.

While holidaying in Australia my sister and I lost our macaron virginity with a macaron tasting!  A degustation if you will ... look!!!

There was also a pistachio flavoured macaron, that was eaten first.

I ate all 6 flavours, she conquered 4.

They were fab!  All crunchy and chewy and creamy.  My favourite was the chocolate.  Least favourite was raspberry, it was too raspberry jammish.

I'm so glad that they don't have boxes of these (made in France!) boxes of macarons in NZ.  At least not that I've seen.  If they did I would end up living on them, which probably wouldn't be too healthy.

Next step, making my own macarons!  I'll continue to buy macaroons.

Show us ya growler!

I'm not going to show you my growler.
I value her privacy too much.
But let's just say she's about 5"3.
Has beautiful big brown eyes.
Cheekbones I'd kill for.
And we once shared the same last name.

Yep, I'm talking about my sister - and she is my growler.

Recently I visited her in Oz and she gave me a wee telling off for not updating my blog more regularly.

What can I say ... she's right.  I've been slack.  But I've been baby-obsessed and I didn't want to bore anyone with baby blather.

Since my visit to Oz stuff has happened.
Actually stuff happened in Oz.  My sister and I ate macarons for the first time.  I'll blog about that when I find my camera which has a picture of the macarons.

Yes, I've lost my camera - it'll be around somewhere.  But one of the other things to happen is that I've moved further out of Auckland to a beautiful area with a view of the sea and of sunsets.  In the process I put my camera somewhere so special that I can't find it.  Oh well, it'll turn up and when it does I'll take pictures of said sunsets and seaviews and blog about those.

Yep, no baby blather here ... just boring old sunsets, food and plenty of waffle.

Hope this post makes you happy sis xoxo

Darling Dahlias, You Do Delight Me

The other day my lovely mother-in-law came for a visit and brought me a bunch of dahlias from her garden.

I don't have much else to say other than I love dahlias, they're so cheery and beautiful.

If you're feeling blue they have a magical way of brightening your day.  (Oh goodness, that's on the verge of sounding like a Hallmark card - perhaps I've found my calling?!)

Oh Baby!

I just bought the most beautiful dress from Trade Me.

I could try and describe it but I'd only embarrass myself with my lack of fashion knowledge, so here's the picture of it ...

(I hope the trader doesn't mind me using it!)

I love how it's so subtly sexy.  It covers everything, but it emphasises the curves (and apparently has a slit up the back, vavavooom!)

The only thing wrong with this dress?  I won't be able to wear it for months, because I'm pregnant.

Unfortunately pregnancy hasn't cured me of my desire to buy vintage frocks.  So now they arrive all packaged up, they're unwrapped and lovingly placed in my wardrobe.  Where I admire them from time to time.

I like to think of them as post-baby-body inspiration.  

Get Off My Arse!

Today the almost unbelievable happened.

After 10 years of being a dedicated biped I put my hands on the wheel of a car and drove.

Not just a practice tootle down the quiet backstreets of my suburb.  A real life drive.  On the open road.  Going 100 kilometres an hour, whizzing past paddocks and cows, before slowing down to 50 k's as we moseyed through small country towns, then increasing speed as we hit the Auckland motorway.

I feel like I should have italicised 'the'.

With leather encasing my butt, the smell of hot tarmac in the air and sweaty palms greasing the wheel I felt the magnificent freedom of the keen motorist.

I also discovered what I'd long suspected.  People are mental on the roads.  Young people and grown ups alike tailgated the living daylights out of me.  Apparently doing the speed limit is optional to those driving Holdens or Fords or clapped out Toyotas from the early 90's.  Who knew?

So I was thinking I should get a bumper sticker made.

Please back off.
My tail is for my husband alone.
Or maybe ...
If you can see me giving you the finger you're too close.