Organic Gardening at our Place

Let me tell you a little secret: I don't have an organic garden. There, I've said it. It feels better to be out with it. Actually, even more shocking, I'm not really trying to have an organic garden. What I would like is a garden where herbicides and pesticides and commercial fertilizers just aren't needed. More of how I'm trying to get to that point later.

There are actually two main ways that my garden isn't organic. Firstly the typical way, where some of the things I put on my garden don't have organic certification. Certainly the compost I make isn't organic because I put in things to compost that aren't organically certified (fruit and veg are only part of it, last time I checked the SMH wasn't even claiming to be organic. In fact, some of those columnists are downright poisonous!) but also there is so much INORGANIC MATTER in my soil left from the last owners of the house, that I can only hope to minimise it, not to get rid of it entirely. The solid things like glass, metal and asbestos (!) aren't the biggest problem, more difficult to get rid of are the things the previous owners used to attempt to keep the weeds down. Well, I can only assume that they carpeted many of their garden beds in fake grass, or lined them with plastic, to keep the weeds down, although I may be wrong, they may just have had a very different aesthetic. The astroturf stuff is actually really problematic as sunlight (UV radiation) has started to break it down, leaving many thousands of little 'tufts' of fake grass throughout the soil of my garden. From my reading it seems that UV light breaks some of the polymer bonds, so the plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, which to me suggests that it gets into the food chain more easily. The problem with plastics getting into the food chain is far to big for this blog, but google on the gyre, pthaletes, BPA and endocrine disruption (Not safe for people with anxiety disorders! This is some freaky shit!). So, I remove what I can but I try not to think about it all to much so I don't wind myself into an anxious knot.

That green stuff is tufts of plastic grass

Given that I can't ever hope to have a garden that could be considered organic I do try and stay green in my garden. Just like I firmly believe in 'good enough parenting' (google it!) I am aiming for something I think of as 'organic enough gardening' which allows a certain amount of flexibility, considering what I'm working with. So I minimise the external inputs of pesticide, herbicides and fertilizer to saves energy, both in terms of production and transport and doesn't add even more weird chemicals to my garden. What I do, and plan to do is:

• Weeds: I manually weed my garden, use mulch and newspaper and I'm planning to try black plastic for some tricky bits too. High strength vinegar on a hot day is very effective on things that I can't get to easily in other ways (such as between the pavers). I'm also going to use green manure for some areas, so the weeds can't get a hold.
• Pests: Again, manual removal is excellent for insect pests. Apart from the decrease in pest numbers, it also means I spend more time in the garden. Obviously this isn't always possible, but as Peter Cundall says, just wandering around observing is very important for gardeners, so that's what I aim for. I am also doing things like a bit of companion planting (Marigolds! Yay!), exclusion (especially for chooks, possums, other birds and bandicoots) and hopefully the chickens will also help by eating insect pests.
• Fertility: We have two compost tumblers that are working well, and the added joy of chook poop means that we should have some really good quality compost by the begginning of summer. I do purchase sugar cane mulch, which I use for the hen house as well as the garden, but that should decrease when I start growing green manure and when my comfrey starts growing.

Currently we have two raised beds, soon to be three. One is planted out with lettuce seedlings, coriander seedlings and cucumber seeds the other is still resting so the compost has time to loose it's heat and the worms can start their work. We have some eggplant and capsicum/pepper seeds germinating inside and plans for sweetcorn, bush beans and sunflowers (I'll put the sunflowers out the front to protect them from the chooks and provide some much needed cheerfulness to our front yard). Yesterday the kids helped me plant some pretty, low maintenance, pollinator attracting, flower seedlings (a white, scented allysium, a small white salvia and a white and pink coastal daisy). We are also planning to put a tent-style trellis between two of the beds, made out of some weldmesh that we found hidden in our garden somewhere. We also have some herbs around the place and a potato tower that is growing brilliantly. I would also like a passionfruit vine, and I think that it would be nice near our front door, where it would enjoy the northerly aspect and keep a bit of our wall shaded.

Raised beds, with coop behind the clivias

Potato tower, needing mulch

Hen Happiness

I picked the 'chookens' up the day after my birthday, so we've had them here for about 10 days and I'm still  besotted.

Chook looking pissed off after
spending 40 mins in a box.

The people we picked them up from (City Chicks in Marsden Park) were just lovely. They showed me how to clip their wings, they let my little boys go exploring in their yard, showed them baby chicks and the advice they gave about feeding and husbandry all seemed very sane and matched with what I have read already.

The henhouse

We got home late afternoon and popped them in the coop. I fussed around trying to make sure they knew where food and water was located (we are using Dine-a-Chook and Wet-a-Chook for food and water - a bit different to what the chooks were used to, so I put some scratch grains (AKA chicken treats) around the feeder and even inside the feeder and the hens got the idea at once). The black chicken (an australorp cross) managed to escape and I realised that she was the feisty one. The kids had their first lesson in chicken catching (slow, quiet, no sudden movements and try to corner her) and I discovered that hunting a black hen through the shrubbery at dusk was something akin to trying to catch a shadow. Luckily it only took us a few nervous minutes!

The next morning I heard some noisy clucking, and when I went to check on the girls I found TWO EGGS! 

First Eggs!

We haven't had two eggs every day since, but we've had one egg most days (and one hen hasn't come into lay yet). When chooks are stressed they stop laying, so the fact that despite the big move, and despite the kids wanting to pat them and talk to them they are still laying, albeit not perfectly regularly, is fantastic.

Six year old learning to catch and carry a hen

They were named mostly by the boys - Kiz said he wanted the brown chooken to be called Henny Penny, so that was fine. I wanted the black one to be called Kali and Asher wanted them all to have the word 'hen' somewhere in their name so the Light Sussex became Henrietta and the black chicken became Henny Kali.

So far the thee chooks are doing everything I'm 'paying' them for. Providing eggs, teaching the kids about caring for animals and providing all of us with amusement (Asher said to me yesterday "We have the most fascinating chooks mum!"). Of course, I now need to get the planned raised beds with bird netting sorted pronto, and some more fencing organised - the chooks are scratching up my seedlings, stomping on my new lavender, discovering new and creative ways to escape, pooping in  remarkably inconvenient and I strongly suspect Henny Penny has started laying her eggs under a bush or somewhere because the last few days have only been one-egg-days. Despite all that, they are funny and friendly and the whole family is glad we have them.

The girls saw the treat bucket!

Chook-shed progress

Y’know how they say ‘measure twice, cut once’ well we now say ‘measure more than three times, AND get someone who isn’t hung-over to check your workings, before concreting once’ – because a concreted-in post is hard to move, and if you don't get it right you don't have much wiggle room. 

The high vis gear was just for show.

Despite small challenges such as these Michael and I worked hard and over two (part)days, we got the chicken coop floor installed on our steeply sloping, poorly terraced site. The shed itself is a kids kit cubby house that we are re-purposing. I then spent Sunday painting the trim and giving the inside a coat of this rather unpleasant cack yellow that I got very cheap at Bunnings. It’s just to protect the cheap pine from chickens, not for looks. The outside is a storm grey with white trim, and a green colourbond roof.

Installed floor, from above. The hole is chicken-access to what will be the secure run underneath.

The next steps are to cut pop doors for the chickens and egg collection in the walls of the cubby. There will be two chook doors and a person door – the two chook doors will be on different sides, so we have the option of making movable day runs, using chicken wire and star pickets. This should allow us more flexibility to do things like to rest the run area, maybe grow hen-fodder or even attach a broody box if we ever get that far (shhhh! don't tell my husband of my expansionist plans!). The person door will now need steps or a ladder - we ended up raising the hen house higher than planned.

After the pop-holes have been made we will touch up the paintwork then install the walls and roof. We are going to use weldmesh to screen the bottom part so that the chooks will have a fox proof area underneath the coop itself, for dust-baths as well as food and water. We are planning on raising the roof , gable and all,10cm or so, and putting mesh around the gap for ventilation. I can't really imagine a chook getting too cold in a Sydney winter, but I remember cubbies being pretty stuffy when I was a kid, and apparently stuffy is BAD for chooks. There is also a window that we will cover with weldmesh, a hole in the floor for the chickens to go downstairs and the plan is to cut a hole in the person-door to allow for ventilation. If we work out that it's not enough we will add more vents.

Installed floor, showing the sloping site.

The logistics of putting it all together will be more daunting than I expected too - I was thinking I could do it myself, with a bit of help from the lovely husband, but since it's all a bit higher than planned it's going to be more difficult.

I think I might end up having that barn raising that I've been joking about after all!

The New/Old House

I’m at work. Yes, I know I shouldn’t be blogging at work, but I’m doing ‘creative’ work and for me that requires a certain amount of effing about and procrastination. At least writing something here is better than repeatedly clicking refresh on my email and favourite forums. So, if I wasn’t sitting here what would I be doing? Well, the things that have been taking up my time recently, apart from hanging out doing school holiday things with my kids, have all been centred around our garden and house.

We moved in about six months ago, and we are still unpacking and organising. Although the house is a lot bigger, there are fewer closets and places to store ‘stuff’ combine that with the fact that family members have given us piles of ‘stuff’ that they either think we should have (I’m looking at you, ugly barstools!) or things they want us to store for them (Yes, I know I’ve left boxes at my parents for years and now they are finally exacting revenge – we have their car and a whole pile of their belongings while they are off travelling).

The other thing about our ‘new’ house is that it’s old and a bit rundown. It was given a quick coat of paint, the cheapest possible kitchen and cheap carpet when it was put on the market. This is a good thing – the new bits mean that it is totally liveable for us but it also meant that it was a bit more affordable (at least the owners didn’t have a fancy remodel that they needed to recoup costs on), we aren’t too precious about our kids staining the carpet or scuffing the walls (ahem, toilet training!) and when the time comes and we have plans and money (hah!) we won’t feel bad about ripping things out and replacing them.

Our first steps in making this place just the way we want it is just to live in it. We are seeing what works and what doesn’t in each season of the year. So far we know we need to do something about the outside covered area which is roasting in summer and freezing in winter (it’s also ugly!). We would like a bit more street appeal (the last reno was probably in the late 60s or early 70s and is…. Unsympathetic) and I feel that we need an architect to help us with flow and using space better. I want a roomful of built-in bookshelves as well, but that’s not necessary in the short term.

Since we don’t want to do much to the house, considering we might have to un-do it reasonably soon, when we have more of a plan, we have been concentrating on the garden. I am desperate for chooks and veggies and we are starting that process now: we have a potato tower, a few beans, heaps of herbs, some of the over-abundant weedy vegetation that was smothering the yard cleared and a site for the chook house. We are composting and I’ve been collecting fallen leaves from the deciduous trees on the street for mulch. The chook house and raised veggie beds are next on the list, with the lovely Michael, my brother and chook-shed-engineer supremo, helping me out (it helps that he’s skint and I feed him. It’s a cheap and truly wonderful birthday present as well!).

I'm going to include a few more house and garden type posts here, just so when we have a lovely, flourishing garden and a pretty, organised house I can look back and remember. I'm having a great time withPinterest too, pinning mostly ideas for home and garden, as well as some kid stuff. So follow along, or better yet, send me things that you think I'd like!

 

Happy Diwali!

Tomorrow is Diwali and here is another post about me trying to deal with being an atheist who lives in a predominantly Christian country trying to raise kids to have a sense of Hindu traditions. Today I went fossicking around the interwebs looking for information on celebrating Diwali with kids (yeah, it is the day before I clearly like to be prepared). I didn't have a clear idea of what I was looking for but rangoli colouring in pages, while nice, weren't quite it. Eventually I found I wonderful blog post from Devis with babies which was just what I was looking for. So, in the spirit of Insta-Culture Ways to Celebrate Diwali With Your Child* I'm going to list the things we do (and the things I plan to do from next year onwards).

1. Lights! It's all about light, so we already light candles and leave the doors open for Lakshmi but next year I'll put up the Christmas lights (and, because I love having fairy lights up over summer they will probably stay up over Christmas and maybe until the end of daylight savings). I'd like to get some diyas, or make some with the kids too. I'm terrified of fireworks, and nervous of sparklers so I've bought a bunch of glow sticks so the kids get some 'light' to play with. Maybe in a few years they can play with sparklers (while I hide inside and don't watch).
2. Sweets! Next after the lights in importance seems to be sweets, so I'll try making something sweet with the kids next year. I find any cake or biscuit based around almonds or other nuts to be appealing to my Desi inlaws so today I made almond and cranberry biscuits which have an almost burfi like middle, but are far more suited to my white-girl palate. I'll take them tomorrow when we go and visit my inlaws for dinner.
3. Presents are important for kids and we explained Diwali to 4 year old Asher as 'Indian Christmas' which only works because we don't really let Jesus in to our Christmas celebrations, so he thinks of Christmas as 'the festive season' and not a religious event. Last year I got both kids a little present and this year I'll do the same.
4. New clothes are a Diwali tradition too, and this year I didn't think to get new outfits but I'll try to remember next year (remind me!). Maybe the new clothes will come to be our traditional Diwali gift for the kids. I always wear traditional Indian outfits at Diwali, even though we just have dinner at home with family, and tomorrow is no exception - although I don't have a new outfit, which would be more appropriate.
5. Decorating the house is another Diwali tradition and I didn't even think about it this year, but next year I might try a few Diwali crafts with the kids. Perhaps I'll hang up a Bandanwar (door hanging) or try doing a rangoli with the kids and I'll definitely go with the fairy lights.
6. Games, particularly gambling games, are traditional at Diwali (because of the association with Lakshmi the goddess of wealth and abundance) and I'd like to remember to play boardgames, dice or cards with the kids at Diwali. Maybe when they get a bit older we can introduce a simple gambling game (like 'Queens' which is a game traditionally played by my mother's family, but I can't find any reference to it online).

Please feel free to remind me next year to get a bit organised a bit earlier! What traditions do you follow through the year? Are there any other non-Indians who celebrate Diwali?

He's now been on the outside longer than he was on the inside

The little Kiran, as anyone who has spoken to me knows in exhausting detail, is not sleeping for long stretches at night. Part of the problem is that at 9 months he isn't really eating much solid food. He is breastfeeding pretty much 3 hourly around the clock. Meaning the longest streatch of sleep I get is about 2.5 hours.He refuses all our attempts to feed him. Back when I was childless, and knew far more about parenting, I thought that a baby like that just needed a firm hand and a bit of persistance but it doesn't work that way. This kid is really really stubborn. Stubbornness, I believe, is a tempramental thing, not something acquired, and I'm holding on to the thought that it can be a really positive trait, something that will serve the little guy really well when he has gown-up goals he wants to work toward. It's kinda grasping at straws, but I need something to get me through this time.

So, being the problem solver that I am, I've been thinking about why he doesn't eat and how I can help him eat a bit more food. I think at the beginning he didn't like the sensation of swallowing, because of the sense-memory of mucous and suction from when he was sick with whooping cough as a tiny baby. Now he's a bit older I think the reason he doesn't eat much is to do with his stubbornness. It's a bit freaky having power and control dramas with a kid under one - I had always associated that kind of thing with toddlers, with two-year-olds asserting their independance.Anyhow, the other day I plonked a bowl of weetbix down in front of him and let him at it. To my surprise he knew what to do with it. He stuck the spoon in the bowl and then in his mouth and then actually swallowed what went in his mouth, rather than spitting it straight out.

So I've just been running with that, letting him make as much mess as he wants, helping him out when he seems to want it. As soon as food starts coming out of his mouth again I wipe him off, wipe the highchair, wipe the floor, remind myself that there will be less wiping up one day and we do something else. At best he's eaten about 60ml (3 tablespoons) volume of food in a day (yesterday) which doesn't seem to be enough. I know a five-month-old who eats that much each meal. Hopefully soon it will start being more satisfying to him and he can get more of his calories during the day so he won't wake so much at night. And the No-Cry Sleep Solution will help me to get him to sleep better by himself and if it doesn't then we'll be off to Tresillian because I'm getting pretty close to the end of my tether here.

Where was I up to?

In the spirit of blog drought-breaking I offer you another status update style post.

Kiz got his first tooth last week and he (still) won't eat food off a spoon. After advice from various books and wise friends I've decided to not bother. I sit him in his highchair at least once a day and put food of some description in front of him. This might be soft bread, soft fruit, cooked veggies, tinned fruit or whatever is to hand that I think he won't choke on. The other day he sucked the middles out of about three home-grown cherry tomatoes and yesterday he sat on my lap and I fed him shreads of 'rice noodles with shrimp in thick egg sauce' that we were having (at a great Chinese dumpling place in Asherfield). I did try to pick the bits that weren't quite as covered in prawn-y egg sauce but I'm also confident now that he isn't going to have an anaphalactic reaction to eitehr prawns or egg because he must have ingested some.

Asher is every bit the three-and-a-half year old. He tries our patience daily and yet brings us more delight than I had imagined. He calls 100s and 1000s (sprinkles) 'twothousands' and has elaborate conversations about his imaginary friends. Beebee and Channa are friends while apparently Franj and Leego are customers. Often he tells us what they are having for dinner, or talks about Beebee's yellow car or Franj and Leego having five swimming pools at their place.

As I was lying next to Asher going to sleep last night he felt a little warm and sounded slighly snuffly and when I took his Temp it was about 38C so we stripped him down a bit but he seemed happy enough. He was a lot hotter at 4 or 5am but agina, his spirits were good, so I lay with him while he went back to sleep. This morning he's a bit snotty but cheerful, so we are off to Baby M's first birthday party.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

Ooops

That whole post-every-day-for-a-week thing didn't work out too well yet, did it? Truth is I completely forgot about it until yesterday and yesterday I was busy with the normal routines AND making a birthday cake for Michael. Witness:
Unfortunately the photo really doesn't do justice to how cute young Michael is or how incredibly pink the icing on the cake was. It does show up my messy living room quite nicely though. I used Megan's 'Never Fail Chocolate Cake' recipe but before I read the 'method' I was already creaming the butter and sugar so I made it the same way one would make a traditional cake (cream butter and sugar, add eggs and beat, add alternate bits of dry ingredients and liquid). I also added a dash of booze (in this case Marsala) in the water. It worked really well but wasn't as good as the first time I tasted it when Megan made it.

The other news I have is that we are going to Singapore! We booked tickets last Friday and will be travelling with friends E and B and their ~6 month old daughter baby M. Obviously the boys need passports and because mine has expired I need one too. I am getting mine in my married name which means I had to complete the whole application rather than just getting a renewal, which was expensive and a hassle. I sent the applications in last Friday and although the photos are pretty horrible (Asher's makes him look SO SAD) the passports should be back in time for travel on the 19th. We are working out accommodation arrangements and I've started freaking out out packing for two adults, a preschooler and an infant. If anyone has any good websites for travel with kids (more than just 'take it slow and remember to take something to amuse them on the plane') or suggestions of what infants wear in tropical climates or what to amuse active preschoolers with on long flights (besides phenergan!) I'd much appreciate it.

Fussy little gourmand

Just really quickly* I want to tell you about Asher's dinner last night. It appeared normal at the time but when Bindy called me to check what Asher eats these days I thought back to last night and realised it wasn't normal at all. We gave him smoked salmon wrapped around cream cheese, pieces of ripe soft brie with Turkish bread and some cornichons and olives as 'vegetables.' Although he ate it there were tears at one point because he wanted pate (if there had been some in the fridge we would have given it to him - that much protein and iron's gotta be ok for a kid). Bloody fussy little thing he is!


*I've got a *lot* of cleaning and tidying to do after two days at work. I won't be sitting here playing really mindless facebook games, nope, not me.

Family Meals

Before Asher came into our lives I would happily talk to anyone who would stand still long enough about the wonders of family meals. I firmly believed that families who ate together were more likely to communicate more and therefore be more functional and happy. I believed the dark hints I made about poor family communication being one of the causes so many societal ills. The only exception in my mind was the great Friday night in - key components of which are loved ones, a glass of wine, the couch and something funny on TV.

After all this talk Sanjay and I figured we should put our money where our mouth is and try and teach Asher good eating habits by modelling them ourselves. Although we almost always eat breakfast together we rarely eat other meals together at home. Lunch is a kind of snack-y nibble on sandwiches, fruit and crackers between 10 and 12:30 and there is often an afternoon snack of some kind but then we feed Asher his dinner at 5:30 or 6pm and then the adults eat after Asher is in bed. So yesterday Sanjay and I planned to have dinner all together as a family. We chose to cook something we though he might eat and Sanjay arranged to be home by 5:45 so no one would be too tired or grouchy.

Unfortunately all my rose-tinted smugness crashed into the cold hard reality of eating with a toddler last night. Before we even got to the table I was just fed up with the whole thing. I was sore and tired and had no conversation for poor Sanjay. Asher had been cranky all day and wanted to bang his bowl on the table more than eat. In an effort to increase the togetherness quotient of the meal we were eating out of the same melamine bowls as Asher, and although they are rather nice and completely adult (white with a fun aqua stripe and a groovy pattern) it still felt a bit like a picnic. I'm not sure whether it was the fact that I ate my entire bowl of creamy, bacon-y pasta in about two minutes, or whether it was having to eat my sanctimonious pre-baby words, but I felt decidedly queasy by the time we had all finished.

I'm not sure where we go from here. I really enjoy the glass of wine and the quiet and calm of our meals after Asher's bedtime but I really do want to make a tradition of family meals. Do we just keep trying? What can we do to make it more pleasant for me? Do we really have to do it every week? Can I have two quick beers before we start so I'm tipsy enough to not care about the noise and the mess? I'm not sure alcohol-as-a-coping-strategy is really what I want to model for our impressionable youngster...

18 month update

King of the Castle
Originally uploaded by surroundsound5000

I love this picture Michael took of Asher on Crowdy Beach! It was taken while we were up staying at Crowdy over Christmas, which is when Asher turned 18 months old. It's a convenient thing for my memory to have is birthday right in the middle of the year. It was from the 26th of December, his 18 month 'birthday' that we really noticed an amazing improvement in his language. From being a kid who knew a bunch of words - enough so that, if I concentrated for a day or two, I would have been able to count them - he became a kid who knew more words than I could easily count. It seems exponential and if he continues learning at this rate he'll know more words than me by the time he's Three. Luckily, I don't think that'll happen, but the change is really sudden.

The behavioural changes are a little more subtle. He throws more tantrums when he doesn't get what he wants, and the tantrums are more fierce. On the flip side he's a bit less clingy to Sanjay and I and is happier spending time with his grandparents and uncles and aunties. Sanjay's parents in particular seem to be getting so much joy out of the fact that he is now keen to play with them.

The eating thing is getting a bit easier for us too - we are getting more comfortable letting him choose not to eat - he still seems to sleep fine and he would eat if he was hungry. I realise that this is us getting our heads around it better, not really a change in him, but I've always known Asher's fussy eating is a problem for us rather than for him. Hopefully it will get even easier as the three of us work out exactly what is going to work for our little family.

Anyhow, happy new year to everyone, and I hope it brings peace and contentment.

The worst part of parenting?

Nope, although the sleep deprivation was bad when Asher was still a baby it wasn't the worst bit for us. The lack of spontaneity in our lives now doesn't bother me at all and although we rarely go out to nice restaurants not having the money or opportunity isn't a real problem for us. Before Asher arrived I thought the gross bits of parenting would be just awful but I now just laugh when I realise I'm wiping snot off a little nose with my own clothing and even today's cheerful game of peek-a-boo around the toilet door whilst stuck on the loo with diarrhoea wasn't that bad. For me, the worst bits of parenting are the relentlessness and the not knowing whether you are doing the right thing.

The relentlessness is realising that this demanding 24x7 job is never going to end. Even when you aren't 'on duty' you are on call in case of emergency and even when your kids are adults you will still worry about them. I'm getting more and more used to this part, but it really hits home occasionally. Especially when people tell me they are going to be off work for a month, holidaying on an island for a week and then driving down the coast for a few weeks, stopping where and when they feel like it (er, have a great honeymoon Niki and Ryan!)

The not knowing is different. At this stage I'm not sure I'm ever going to come to grips with it. Apart from the physical evidence of Asher growing, learning and obviously thriving there are times, many of them, when I'm just so conflicted about what I should be doing. I remember my own parents always seeming to know exactly what was and wasn't allowed (and why), what the right thing to do in any circumstance was and also why (when that reason was 'because I said so' I still believed them). I now realise that a lot of it was bluff - it must have been!

The part of our lives that I'm most unsure about centres around food and eating. Sanjay, not normally one for stern pronouncements, stated that our child would not be a fussy eater. He started saying this well before I got pregnant with Asher and continued to proclaim it until about the time Asher started wanting to make his own choices around food, sometime before he was a year old. It turns out we have somewhat of a fussy eater, even considering the normally capricious nature of toddlers. Now, the unsure-ness plays into all this when I try to work out what I *should* be doing about it. Will he get scurvy if he has absolutely no fruit or vegetables besides sultanas for a month? Is the protein in cheese, yoghurt, Weetbix, butter and bread enough? Will he turn into a spoilt brat if I keep offering him things each dinnertime until he deigns to eat something? Will the impulse to give him a good shake be too strong if he screams like I'm forcing him to eat dishwasher powder when I put some in front of him for dinner that was a favourite yesterday? Should I let him go to bed with no dinner if he doesn't eat the first two or three things I put in front of him? Even if we gave in and decided he could live happily on nothing but Weetbix for breakfast, vegemite sandwiches for lunch and brie for dinner would he survive? Why is something that he can't get enough of one day imperiously rejected with no hope of him even tasting it the next? It's driving me crazy and I don't really know what to do about it.

At the moment he does eat Weetbix with milk and yoghurt for breakfast. He nibbles on vegemite sandwiches, sultanas and sometimes some crackers or a biscuit from about 10am until midday. He might have a cracker when he wakes up from his sleep but then from 3pm until dinnertime I don't let him have anything so he has some chance of being hungry for dinner (between 5pm and 6pm). For dinner, which is the problem meal, I usually offer him leftovers from our meal the night before or something from the freezer that he has liked in the past. Occasionally I am able to get a few kernels of sweetcorn into him and he'll often eat something involving rice (a month ago it was risotto, now that is considered poison and he'll eat dhal and rice). He generally won't eat finger food for dinner (er, unless it's toast) and anything green, such as a speck of parsley, will be either spat out if it's not rejected outright. We can't eat with him (we don't want to and it doesn't fit in with Sanjay getting home from work) and I do everything I can think of to make meals pleasant and stress free. I suspect that he'll continue to be healthy (perhaps he extracts nutrients from the air?) but the real problem is that it's driving me absolutely batshit crazy. I'm going to get my ever-patient and enthusiastic mother to feed Asher when we head up to Crowdy Head for Christmas. Until then I'll just try to rustle up some inner reserves of peace and zen-like calm in the face of the dinner-time tantrums - and getting a gin and tonic for me will have to be just part of getting Asher's meal ready.

Not a baby anymore

On Sunday when he had his Mundan saṃskāra Asher officially left behind his baby self. The wonderful Rami (The same pundit who officiated our wedding. He has his own website if you want to know more) explained to us that this was the beginning of his spiritual life and the official end of babyhood. It was a lovely ceremony, Asher was amazingly calm and good (which I attribute to Pundit-ji's chanting) and afterwards we ate great food from Billu's catering and chatted while kids ran around and pestered their parents to be allowed in the pool. I think that as far as these big Indian parties go it was fun, and everyone seemed to be having a reasonably good time. There will be photos up on Flickr in a day or two.

The actual hair removal happened after the ceremony - Tim used Elia's clippers to give Asher a 'Number 1' but the lack of sleep, heat and scary buzzing was a bit to much for Asher by that point so the haircut's a bit patchy. I'm going to drop into my hairdresser this afternoon and see if we can't smooth it out a bit - we don't want the little guy looking like he has mange! He does look quite different now though - less like a little Martin child, like me at the same age, and more like a Chhabra. His head is larger than I thought it was and his jaw is somehow fuller. At first he felt a bit like a stranger and I think it's going to take me a few more days to get used to.







* * * * *

Tomorrow we get the keys to our new house. I would say that posting here is going to be patchy until we settle in but it's already so patchy that I can't see anyone even noticing. I'll let you know what I think of the new place once we've moved.

Clare is back!

The lovely Clare (or "CLA!" to Asher) is back, and while I realise I haven't mentioned here that she was going having her back is so exciting I need to post! Asher grinned and flailed his arms and legs about when he saw her, so he was obviously happy to see her too. She got back from the Students of Sustainability conference in Perth in the early hours of yesterday morning. Because I locked myself out of the house (again) she came over with spare keys to let me in and she is bubbling over with enthusiasm and ideas. This was her first big trip away without family - a group of Sydney students drove a bus over to Perth for the conference and camped the whole time, not bathing for the entire trip. Clare says they are all really great people and really inclusive, but I think the need for complete consensus for all decisions would get to me before we even got half-way across the Nullabor.

She was at a protest that got pretty full-on, with cops in riot gear using their truncheons and capsicum spray and arresting some of her chilled out hippy mates. She was careful enough not to get arrested, but hearing her stories brought back memories of when I used to do stuff like that. Her current obsessions are with the mining on indigenous land and sexual violence - I think. I'm really glad she's back safely and is going to come with us when we go to Canberra in early August (and I can't wait for the photos! She promised to put some up on Flickr).

In other news, Asher is now completely over his mystery illness and once more our happy boy and he cut his seventh tooth yesterday. He is still being fussy about food though - am I a bad mother for feeding him a slightly stale prawn cracker and half a banana for dinner? He wouldn't eat any of the vegetable pasta I prepared (or the other half of the banana)....

Explosion!

This pic is taken by a proud parent to show of Asher's eating-with-a-spoon ability. Unfortunately he's much more interested in the camera than he is in his breakfast. Eating with a spoon is not the only developmental leap we have had, although he's still not walking on his own, just happily cruising and crawling very fast.

There has also been a language explosion, suddenly Asher seem to be able to understand so much more. He has understood a connection between 'bye-bye' and waving for several months but now he starts waving when he wants to leave, or when he wants someone else to leave (sorry dad! He hadn't seen you for a while!). He has also been using 'mumma' and 'dadda' more-or-less correctly for a few weeks now (I appear from the bedroom and it's 'mumumum' or he peers under the kitchen door saying 'daaadaaaaaa' hoping that Sanjay will open it for him) but suddenly he seems to understand so much more. Over the weekend Sanjay asked if he had finished his apple the other day and Asher handed Sanjay the piece of apple that he was holding. Later on I asked Asher to put his green ball in the basket and he did it. Now that we have examples of Asher understanding language we are having to be a whole lot more careful about what we say around him. We'd both like to make sure we keep the bickering to a minimum and definitaly keep name-calling and swear words out of it.

I guess all this new language is perfectly developmentally appropriate now that we are getting so clsoe to his first birthday. Two weeks yesterday til he turns one! I'll think about it a bit more and try to reflect a bit on how this first year has been.

In terms of less pleasant explosions, and I'll spare you the details, Asher got his first gastro bug - it wasn't particulalry bad, but I'm amazed by the amount of laundry I had to do for a few days. It's taken him a week or two to start eating normal foods again, which I guess isn't surprising because he threw up everything he ate for a few days. I was so glad I am still breastfeeding him though, it is a nice source of comfort and I didn't need to worry so much about him not eating food since he was still getting breastmilk.

He is going to wake up soon, so I had better race around and get ready to get out the door while the sun is still out so he can have a crawl around on the grass before lunch.

Asher got his first proper injury yesterday! He slipped in the bath (I *knew* there was a reason we try to keep him seated in the bath) and got a rather large bump on his forehead. I was in the shower at the time, getting ready to go out for a drink with some of the Baby Club mothers and when I peered out to see if everything was ok I saw Asher in Sanjay's arms with a giant red bump growing on his head. Sanjay and I freaked out slightly, wondering if we had let our child get a head injury but after a bit of fretting, plenty of Rescue Remedy for all of us and the reassurance of mum who dropped in on her way home from work Asher was declared fine and I still got to go out.


But that slightly scary milestone isn't what today's post is actually about. What I wanted to post about was the sudden realisation I've had over why parents get so anxious about what, and how much, their babies eat.

I always secretly thought that parents who worry about that kind of thing, when their babies or toddlers are obviously thriving, were being a bit ridiculous. I've always believed that as long as parents provide a variety of nutritious food kids will eat when they are hungry, and if they aren't eating they are obviously not that hungry. But now, on days like yesterday, when Asher only picks at his dinner and eats nothing but air for lunch two days running, I get all nervous that he's not eating enough. This morning I spent his nap time preparing food that I thought would be particularly appealing and when lunchtime came (we were at the park with a friend) he wolfed down almost everything I offered and then proceeded to follow his little friend M around, taking his bread and picking up dropped banana and corn cakes.

So next time he throws all his usual favourite foods on the ground in disgust and complains loudly about being confined to his highchair I need to remember that he knows best in these situations. Next time someone tells me that they think he's "skinny" and "doesn't eat much" I have to not only tell them that he eats when he's hungry, but tell myself the same thing, over and over until I believe it.

In praise of pumpkin

When Asher had his cold he got fussy about what he ate for the first time. He just seemed to want simple flavours and smooth textures but because it was a 'first' it was a disconcerting experience for Sanj and I. I just kept repeating to myself like a mantra that as long as he was still breastfeeding a week or two of not eating 'well' is fine. Anyhow, the foods that he would still eat happily were all orange - carrot, pumpkin and sweet potato. I suppose it's because they get a nice smooth consistency after a quick go in the Bamix's food processor attachment and they are quite sweet (they are also cheap, easy to cook and freeze well - what's not to love???).

Whatever he's been eating, it's been doing the job though - I weighed him the other day at 10 months and he is around 8.75kg which is up from around 8.5kg at 9 months. He is also cruising (walking holding onto things) and standing by himself for up to about 20 seconds ('Look mum, no hands'). He's also sleeping really well at the moment, rarely waking up at might unless there is some change of routine.

All this adds up to a very boring blog post, but it's a case of no news being good news and all being rather peaceful in our household at the moment. I haven't forgotten my promise to describe our current daily and weekly routine though. After visiting little baby Zara on the weekend I was trying to remember a few things from when Asher was only a month old and failing miserably and I know I'll forget what's happening now if I don't write it down.

Belated Nine Month Update

Asher is asleep, so I thought I would just give a super-quick update. At his 9 month appointment he weighed 8.5kg which is around the 25 percentile. This is around where he's been tracking so the ECH nurse was able to dismiss the very slight worry that he's not putting on enough weight. The only 9 month milestone he didn't show her was the pincer grip and although he doesn't do that one very often he does do it. She said it was relatively common in really active kids, because they don't get as much practise as they are too busy crawling around getting into things and suggested I let him indulge in the very messy act of 'self feeding' to let him practice. So yesterday I sat him in his highchair in the kitchen and put a few blobs of silken tofu on his tray. He had a great time smooshing it around and even managed to get quite a lot of it in his mouth. I like the tofu - it's squooshy enough not to really be a choking hazard and yet it kind of crumbles rather than smears, so clean up is comparitively easy. the fact that it's probably pretty healthy for him is a small added benefit compared with keeping him safe and occupied for 15 minutes. It was a good thing to keep him safe and occupied yesterday - I have a pretty awful cold and was keeping him entertained quite a struggle.

Ok, I can hear him trying to put the side of his cot down again (Apparently it's 'impossible' for babies to put the side down from inside the cot. Thank you Boori!) so I had better go and attent to him.

Happy Long Weekend!

I think I'm one of the least religious people I know, I'm deeply agnostic, but I love a long weekend as much as the next person. It's great to have Sanjay around for a few days for baby-wrangling and today it's meant that I got all inspired and seasonal and made hot cross buns from scratch. He's now taken Asher out for a bit so I have a chance to have a quiet cup of coffee, try one of the Easter buns and catch up with emails (and yes, blog)

I used this recipe from the SMH's Good Living and I'm pretty happy with it. It is the first time I've made them so I don't have another recipe to compare them to. I didn't have currants but I had mixed fruit which I picked the cherries out of so it's currants, sultanas and peel rather than just currants and peel. Basically they are very slightly light and yeasty for my taste, so if I was making this recipe again I would use a bigger pinch of salt (which might necesitate longer rising times as the salt inhibits the yeasts growth), maybe more fruit and I might be a little more generous with the spices. For the sake of full disclosure I should also mention that I didn't have lemon essence or powdered gelatine so I used lemon infused caster sugar (!) and two thirds of a sheet of titanium strength leaf gelatine (and extra water)



The whole thing wasn't particularly difficult, just a tad fiddly but it was 100% worth it if only for the breathtaking smell as they were cooking. Now is the time you should wish we had smellavision!

Cooking Carrots

cooking carrots
Originally uploaded by karmakeda.

I'm forgetting a lot these days, so before I forget this, I wanted to make a note of my tips for making babyfood, and how we feed him now, at eight months.

Asher eats mostly food we cook, supplemented with commercially prepared jars when we are out and I'm not organised enough to bring food from home. We started with just rice cereal at around 24 weeks but quickly moved on to pureed pear and apple, then carrot, pumpkin and sweet potato. He now eats pretty much anything that we can puree, mush up or break into tiny pieces.

When I cook food specially for him, as opposed to when I feed him food that we have cooked for ourselves, I have learnt to cut it up much smaller than I would cut up food for me. This is because fruit and vegetables need to be pureed or mashed (the stick blender is my saviour!) and this is easier when they are cooked right through. So cut up small the whole piece gets cooked but the outside doesn't get too overcooked, which keeps the colour and texture good and minimises the loss of nutrients.

When Asher eats our food we try to make sure we reduce the amount of salt and spices we put in our food, but otherwise we just cook it as normal. Tonight we had roast chook and veggies for dinner and tomorrow Asher will probably get some of the roast carrot, potato and beetroot fork-mashed with some water and yoghurt with a bit of very finely diced chicken.

Most of what we cook for him is organic produce, which means it's mostly seasonal (organic fruit and veg is expensive enough when it's in season, out-of-season it's exorbitant), but we have stopped worrying about the allergy stuff. I know a lot of people are very careful about introducing new foods but I talked to my dad about it and he had a conversation with one of his colleagues about it and they believe that there isn't much evidence to suggest that early exposure increases the risk of allergy. We have put our money where our mouth is, so to speak, and he has had egg (in the form of frittata), prawns, wheat, dairy and probably something containing nuts or blended vegetable oil (which always contains peanut oil). We haven't given him sushi yet, but I would feel completely comfortable doing so (except it would mean less for me!).

I actually quite enjoy cooking for him, and I don't mind the process of feeding him now that we are both a bit better at it, although I miss the convenience of a totally breastfed baby (if the baby was with me I knew I had enough food for him!). I'm looking forward to trying new foods and, now that he has a tooth, increasing the textures we try.

Edited to add: when I puree food or have more mashed foood than he can eat in about two sittings I freeze it in a lidded ice cube tray. I then pop the frozen food cubes out inot a ziplock bag or a plastic take-away container and label carefully.