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.