Urban wizards and suited skateboarding

Sometimes I love where we live. Sometimes I don't.

There is the man who walks around dressed as a wizard, with a large staff and some big headphones. The bloke who skateboards past in a suit, often balancing tesco bags in each hand. The painfully thin girl who sometimes stands on the corner opposite our house, late at night selling herself. The not so subtle drug dealing from the bookies down the road. The flowers left outside the flat where a man was shot as part of a gang war. The friendly, helpful DIY shop where one of the staff offered to give us the childsafety locks from his own kitchen cupboard to child proof ours. The brilliant locals parks, albeit with their fair share of the local drunks and teenagers with bull mastiffs...

It's an exciting, at times scary place to live, and for now its our home.

However, at some point UB Dad and I hope to leave London and move to a more rural setting. UB Dad grew up in the country, and I was a city kid. We often debate the merits of both setting, though UB Dad is convinced that there can't be any benefits to growing up in the city, I had some good times and I don't think its done me any harm! But, we both agree that London isn't where we want Babin to grow up. Part of this is, I think, our parental desire to wrap her in cotton wool and protect her from the world, but more than that, I think we want to give her a chance to explore the world without us constantly hovering around her, anxious about local shootings, gangs and whatever else there may be.

That isn't to say that I naively believe the countryside is a idyllic, safe place but perhaps the darker side of the world isn't pushed in your face at every turn.

Yet maybe life would be dreary without our wizard and suited skateboarder? Afterall, what would I watch while I do my ironing?

Garden Harvest

One of the things UB Dad and I try to do is live healthily and sustainably on a budget. For us this has meant trying to grow as much of our own veg as possible (if we had a bigger garden we'd try fruit as well but there just isn't the room.).

UB Dad is very green fingered (though obviously I'm biased!) and this year we grew: tomatoes, curly kale, beetroot, courgettes, cucumbers, chillies, basil, chives, parsley, garlic, french beans, runner beans, borlotti beans and coriander.

The garden has looked very green and lush and we've enjoyed all the produce. Babin has particularly enjoyed helping to pick the tomatoes and beans, though she now thinks that everything is pickable and edible and has taken some persuading that the grass isn't tasty!

As autumn is definately here we've been drying out the last of our beans and trying to find more ways with courgettes... of which we have had a plethora. Many of this years recipes have come from the web and so I thought I'd share my top five courgette/zuchinni recipes:

Courgette Pasta: very simple, grate your courgette, fry briefly with garlic (and for the flesh eaters amongst us - bacon) cover with a little stock and cook til soften. Cook some pasta, add some cream, cheese and a squeeze of lemon to your courgettes mix with pasta and eat. YUM!

Courgette and Cheese Muffins:

Makes 12
225g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
45g butter
115g mature cheddar
1 carrot
1 small courgette
1/2 tsp dried mixed herbs
60ml (2 fl oz) milk

1. preheat oven to 200 oc/ 400 of/ gas mark 6. grease a baking tray.
2. Rub butter into flour and baking powder to make breadcrumbs.
3. add grated cheese, carrot, courgette and mixed herbs. mix in well then add milk to form sticky dough.
4. knead lightly on floured surface then roll into 12 scone shapes and place on baking tray.
5. bake in the oven for 15-20 mins

They freeze well but will keep in airtight container for 4/5 days.

Courgette Fritters

Riverford's amazing Chocolate Courgette Cake

And my big favourite: Mixing Bowl Kids Lemon - Zuchinni Cookies

What are your favourite courgette (and Marrow) recipes?

Has anyone seen my sleep?

Out there somewhere is my sleep... it is defiantely not here, I've looked. It might be in your house though. If you find it could you send it back?

Seriously though, lack of sleep can send me slightly crazy. I haven't blogged for a couple of days because UB Dad has been flexing his creativity and babin and I have been supporting him (Babin of course stole the show a couple of times!) and our support, and haphazard London Transport led to two late bedtimes for Babin. Which, in turn, have led to some disturbed nights for me, with a new low last night of Babin waking every twenty minutes between the hours of 2am and 5am.

Oh the pain! That middle of the night blur, springing out of bed like a mad woman (for some reason the tireder I am the wilder my spring?!?), stumbling into Babin's room, picking her up, and for the first couple of times considering trying to put her back to sleep without feeding her, but soon giving in.... rocking and feeding in the chair, dozing in and out of sleep, trying to concentrate on if she's really feeding or just pretending, putting her back down.. creeping to the door praying she'll go back to sleep, falling into bed....

ooo, its horrible just recounting it! Anyway tonight will be better, I'm sure of it!

And the consequences of this sleep torture?

Poor Babin having her morning blackberry, banana and blueberry milk shake accidentally poured down her front as I yawned while helping her sip it from her cup!

Not getting poor UB Dad's anniversary present, two days in a row.

Trying to clean my contact lenses in toothpaste!

Growing piles of washing.

And, Horror of Horrors: NO SHINY SINK!

Its true, I've already crashed from FLY'ing, I'm so ashamed. Yet tomorrow is another day, and I did read lots of books with Babin, and manage to feed us all dinner.

I'll shine that sink tomorrow.
xx

Singing the baby

It occured to me today as I was singing the Babin up to bed that she may grow up feeling we are living in a musical:

We have a song for:

• Waking up (good morning, good morning from Singing in the Rain)
• Brushing our teeth (this is the way we brush our teeth to the tune of here we go round the mulberry bush)
• Climbing stairs (climb every mountian from sound of music)
• washing hands and face at the end of a meal (rub a dub dub - technically a rhyme!)
• Getting in the bath (if you're happy and you know it)
• Washing her body (wooah! Body wash! to the tune of that old bodyform advert song)
• Going to sleep (Lulla lulla bye byes)

Not to mention repeated renditions of if you're happy and you know it, wind the bobbin up, wheels on the bus, various songs from starlight express and anything else going round my head.

Mind you there is some american research into neuro science and development that suggests that singing helps to regulate breathing and calm anxiety, and aid learning not to mention my own urban barefoot research that its a fabulous distraction from potential dramas and is fun to do together, especially if there are actions!

So onwards with our urban barefoot musical, and any suggestions for new songs please let me know!

ps. particularly if there are any for shining my sink. x

Questions of FLYing

One of things I forgot to include on my aspirations list was my wish to have a beautifully clean and sparkling house. I find housework one of the most depressing tasks, because, of course its never ending. Anyway, I stumbled upon a thread on FLYing on a popular parenting site.

It sounded a bit weird but was in the good housekeeping section (tee hee that I was checking out said section!) so I investigated further. My nosing led me to this .

In short it seems to be a motivational, staggered system of instilling and creating 'good housekeeping skills', all starting with the basic premise of a shiny sink! So, in desperation I'm giving it a go. I'm onto day two of keeping my sink clean and so far so good but I'll keep you updated.

It raises some interesting questions for me my strong concern about having a clean house and being a good housekeeper, and for checking out the website it seems to be an anxiety shared by a lot of other people.

Did I say people? I mean women; because although we are in the 21st century, in what some might argue is the post-feminist era, millions of women feel guilty, dirty and desperate about the state of their houses. I could be wrong, and please correct me if I am, but in my research into 'FLYing' (which is an acronym for 'finally loving yourself'!) I couldn't see any men following the program, or on any of the chats of forums about it.

This is by no means a criticism of the program, hell I need all the help I can get and it has a very supportive and practical approach; BUT why is it such a concern for women? Is cleanliness an expectation instilled by women upon women (I frantically clean my house for my MIL not my FIL), or is it a remnant of the idea of household being the domain of the wife? Should we all (female and male) just relax and not let housework become an anxiety, or is cleanliness next to godliness?

I don't have answers to these questions and really hope that the FLYing system helps me reduce the sense of drowning the housework can engender in me, but I am going to ponder further on how I want Babin to grow up thinking about household tasks.

In the meantime I'm off to fight through the dust to admire my beautiful shiny sink!

Aspirations

Its Sunday evening, and traditionally, pre-baby, a time for me to get a little melancholy about the end of the weekend and the huge numbers of things to do in the week ahead.

However, we've an exciting week ahead and I no longer measure my time in work/home measures so, although there is a lot I plan to get done this week, i feel no melancholy, just a little apprehension (that'll be the piles of washing).

This week's to do list includes: make bread, pick up sewing machine and generally be brilliant which leads me to another list I was making in my head today:


Things I want to be and how I really am:

• brilliant at baking - I have good and bad baking days, producing super light cakes one day and rock cakes the next.
  

• super at sewing - I'm learning, slowly.
  

• excelling ecologically - I think and try to be careful about what I use, buy, make and throwaway, but defiantely a long way to go.

• perfectly patient - Hmm, maybe best to ask UB Dad about that one.
  

• wonderfully witty - I think my wit capactity is in direct correlation to the amount of sleep I've had, so minimal on both of those then!
  

• fantastic at finishing- well, I'm now finishing this post so there's a start, or a finish...

xxx

1.. in one life, and another.

My beautiful girl turned 1 this week. It was an exciting and much celebrated event, we had a party, cake, a trip to the Zoo and lots of singing. I think she enjoyed it nearly as much as me and barefoot dad did!

On her birthday night, as she had her bedtime feed I was thinking about how far she has come in her first year; from my tiny baby with no control over her limbs to a crawling, wobbly standing whirling dervish! Its been an amazing year, and she has experienced so much in that time from trying food for the first time to flying to foreign climes, and thats not to mention cuddles, stories, baths, swings, grandparents, sand.... the list goes on.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about another baby I knew, professionally. This lovely little one was born very early and to a mother who for various reasons couldn't care for him. He spent the first year of his life in a special care unit in hospital, very ill. The only time he left the hospital in the whole of his first year was to go to another hospital for operations. He had no family apart from his mother and on his birthday his only visitor was me, and barefoot Dad.

It got me thinking about all other other babies out there who don't have people to shower them with the love and affection that babin gets, and that really the simple everyday caring I do is a privilege to give and that babin is in many ways a lucky girl.

So I'm just taking this moment to my luck and privilege... and a piece of birthday cake!
xxx