It feels like it been the longest week EVER! Don't really know why though... Maybe because I've just been so super busy (isn't that supposed to make time go faster?) or maybe because I've been working super hard to get the new Mummytube channel up and running. Thats a working title by the way, I am not going to go ahead and give it a number seeing as it's been such a nightmare getting seven people to write a blog every week, but luckily all my 'vloggers' seem pretty enthusiastic so fingers crossed. I'm trying not to get too excited about the whole thing but I have been having fun in the meantime posting vids to my personal channel and chatting to the other mums I have enlisted. Its shaping up to be a pretty international group with three Aussie mums, a US and New Zealand mum and of course me holding up the Brit fortress all by myself. Oooer.
So as I said it's been all systems go this past week. I had a much more successful week of school runs - on time every day, no broken shoes. Tuesday morning I saw my health visitor for the first time since Lucie was about 7 weeks old :O. Almost everyone I know who has more than one child say they dont attend baby clinic nearly as much as they did with their previous child/children. We discussed weaning (I'm planning on going with the baby-led method and waiting until 6 months to start) and Lucie was weighed, she is nearly 14lbs now so almost double her birth weight and has gone from the 9th to the 25th centile which both myself and Letitia (HV) are very pleased with.
I'm going to go back to my goings-on in a minute as while I'm kind of on the subject I wanted to talk about this weeks topic and its all about food (one of my favourite subjects). Now sorry to dissapoint anyone who just read that and thought 'yay we're going to be talking about doughnuts all week!' but the theme is healthy eating for our families and I'm really glad Becki chose it actually as, as I said I am fast approaching the weaning stage and really need to start thinking about what kinds of foods I'm going to be giving my little lovebug. So the questions she asked are (copied and pasted from her original message!) Do you make home cooked balanced meals every evening? Make sure your little ones have there 5 a day? or give in to
chicken nuggets and chips for dinner?
Well I'm not going to lie, we could and in fact should feed the kids better. They have their fruit daily, apples, bananas, grapes etc but most of their evening meals do consist of things like chicken nuggets, fish fingers, potato waffles, beans etc and it's not because they wont eat healthy foods, Courtney especially in fact is quite the opposite, I've seen her devour handfuls of sprouts when we've been to my mums for a roast dinner before. Brett on the other hand is a little more fussy but he likes carrots (they have to be done a certain way though, and I'm not quite sure how that is...) apples, bananas, grapes and strangely, pineapple. There are a few reasons why we dont have things like roast dinners, shepherds pie, stews or any kind of home cooked meals really except the occaisional spaghetti bolognese (cooked by Stew) and the first is that I cant cook. At all. Don't get me wrong I'd love nothing more than to be able to have a nice steaming pot of beef or chicken stew ready and waiting for Stew and the kids when they get home from work or school and be a proper 1950s housewife but I just havent a damn clue where to start. I do feel really bad about this but one thing that makes it a bit easier and reason number two is that the kids have school dinners so I know they have had a main meal during the day that is healthy or at least been offered it. And number three is simply, that neither myself or Stew have the time to cook. He works six days a week, I have a right madam of a baby keeping my hands tied all day and it really is all to do some evenings just to throw a few fish fingers in the oven.
Obviously I'm facing a dilemma now as I can't (and wouldnt) feed Lucie those kinds of foods so I'm hoping I can start to incorporate the foods she will be eating into the kids meals as well. When Brett and Courtney were babies my mum and older sister used to freeze pureed portions of their home cooked meals for them but as I'm hoping to skip the purees this time with any luck it will be easier to merge meals. Then its just going to be a case of working out how to cook all these vegetables and potatoes. I know I must sound really dense and like a terrible mother but my kids don't have sweets and crisps every day, they dont have fizzy drinks and they have plenty of milk, cheese and yogurt in their diet so its not all bad. Theres just alot of room for improvement.
So briefly back to the past week as I've wittered on a bit there. I had my first Netmums meetup as Southsea chairmum on Saturday - it did not go well, not one person turned up even though I had alot of interest, but on the plus side as I was sitting there on my todd with the baby, older two in the play area I noticed a child I recognised walking past who turned out to be my nephew Ronnie, closely followed by his siblings Leia and Harrison and my big Brother Graeme (their dad) and sister in law Corrina so we ended up joining them for a spot to eat which was lovely as I'd not seen them for ages and its always nice for the kids to see their cousins. Then later that night we went to Taylors birthday party which was good fun. Needless to say the kids slept well that night!
Yesterday we went bowling again. And I came last again. I'm really, really bad!
So until next week, love to all :) xxx
Oh and I almost forgot welcome to our new mummies!
Have a great week! x,
When I started giving Freyja food at 4 and a half months old, I started just boiling and freezing various vegatables. I used to boil a load of potatoes, or butternut squash, or broccoli and freeze them in ice tube trays, then once frozen stick them all in a freezer bag and then you can pick out cubes of whatever you want, and you don't need to do another batch for ages! The other thing I used to do (and still do) is get bags of frozen vegetables from Asda/Tesco, like spinach, cauli, peas etc, and use them. The spinach is particularly good, because they are in individual lumps.
ReplyDeleteAs for meat and fish, I get tins of tuna and salmon in the cupboard, and mix that up with pasta and some sort of sauce, like pesto, or parsley or something. It's super easy to do and doesn't require much cooking. The other awesome thing I've found is hummus and cous cous - cous cous is the easiest thing to do, as is lentils, and are super good for you.
As you can tell, I don't like cooking much. I can cook, but I choose not to because I'm run off my feet all day. Luckily for me, James loves cooking and does wonderful food, so he'll do a lovely meal for us of an evening, and if it's suitable for Freyja, which most of it is, we'll make up 2 or 3 bowls of it and stick it in the fridge for the next few days.
I always keep a box of fish fingers and veggie fingers in the freezer, as well as things like meatballs so that I can just defrost when needed. Luckily for me as well, Freyja eats absolutely anything I give to her. Good luck with the weaning! It'll be fun!! xx
Since going back to Work and I usually dont get to return until about 6pm, My H has had to step into the breech of the kitchen and so I give him easy options - I too know the kids have eaten well at Nursery or with the child minder so H is able to do either fishfingers, chicken dippers and chips, and I find sausages and mash easy for him too, put the sausages in the oven for half an hour and peel the potatos and boil for 20 mins if cut small enough then mashed anyway. Kids love it and so it gets eaten, they also eat lots of yoghurts and a raspberry trifle is always a nice treat! sorry unable to give you any tips for weaning though.
ReplyDeletehave a good week :)
And it's working, the only
Thanks for the tips Hannah I'd totally forgot about pasta that will be a good one to use for deffo as you can mix it with just about anything AND its easy to pick up! Will def put all of that into practice in the next few weeks :)
ReplyDeleteAnd 'rella I'm glad I'm not the only one to do that maybe I'm not so awful after all!