17-5-2010 - Today

My mood while writing this blog: Happy

Hi Girls,

Well, I've got a roast pork in the slow cooker for dinner, Caleb is in the highchair chewing on his sippy cup, and Lucas is playing away in his bedroom, so I thought I'd sit down and write a bit of an update. Unfortunately, it's nothing exciting. lol.

Caleb is almost 7 months old. He's been crawling for weeks now, has figured out how to pull himself up to standing with the furniture and has finally decided that there's no point putting up a fight for a 2am feed, because he's not going to get it! lol. He amazes me everyday. It's not that he's "better" than Lucas, or more "amazing", it's just that you forget so quickly the joys of watching a child learn and grow, so I guess you get a kick out of it every time.

Lucas is going great too. He goes to daycare one day a week, then the other two days I'm working, he stays with his grandmother or aunty. But at least now he gets a lil more interaction with other kids, something I felt I deprived him of for a long time. Everyone is always commenting on how well he gets along with other children though, so I mustn't have caused him long-term damage :-).

As for me, I'm feeling great. A little tired at times, but I guess that can be expected. DH and I have decided it's time to get in shape, so we're following a fairly strict eating plan ... although I'm a lil more relaxed than he is, because I don't have as much weight to lose (I'm actually already back in my pre-Lucas-pregnancy clothes), and I'm still breastfeeding, and want to make sure Caleb is getting the right nutrients. My sweetheart however, is young and being quite overweight, it's really difficult for him in a lot of ways. Don't get me wrong, he's not bed-bound or anything, and he's actually quite active, but I just know that he would be even more so, and he would feel a lot better about himself, if we got him down to a more acceptable weight. Other health problems also run in his family that can be triggered or made worse by excess weight, and this worries me a lot. So the sooner he loses the weight, the better.

Since reading "Additive Alert" we've also made a lot of changes at home, not just in our diet, but with regards to what we feed the boys. Sometimes I think it might have been better if I'd never read it, so we could continue the way we were, but I was so horrified by those supposedly healthy foods that I was feeding Lucas, I just had to make a change. I'm now making sure I find the time to do a lot of my cooking from scratch. This means that a) I know what's in the food I'm feeding my family and b) there are little to no preservatives/colours/flavours in each meal.

I was starting to give Caleb rusks, as he's been dribbling a lot and trying to munch on my fingers. I know that baby food is more regulated than other food, but I've decided that what I can do myself, I won't rely on corporate companies to do for me. So I lightly flour a liver (lamb's fry), fry or grill it, slice it into sticks and freeze it. When Caleb looks like he'd like something to munch on, I pull one stick out of the freezer and give that to him. It's way better than giving him a plastic teether, as he's not getting any of the toxins that can be released when plastic is exposed to extreme temperatures, and instead he's getting added iron in his diet. It can be a little messy, but he loves it, and it keeps him quiet for ages.

For lunches he's been getting pureed apple, apple &pear, apple & banana (ok, so apples are easy to cook :-), and I'm currently trying to mix up his dinners a little, but they still feature mostly just vegetables, mashed swede & potato; pumpkin & potato; sweet potato, pumpkin & corn; pumpkin, potato & zucchini. It's great, he's loving it. He also has one full weetbix with milk for breakfast, and a munch on his father's apple or orange.

Lucas is a lil more difficult, but I'm trying to get him to eat what we eat. It's a bit of a struggle at times, but I'm putting up a fight. My theory is that if I give in now, and cook him separate meals, he'll always expect that he'll get what he wants when the rest of the family is having something else. And with all the extra preparation I now have, I don't have time to tailor to everyone.

This past weekend I had something cooking almost the entire time. A batch of vegetable stock, pumpkin soup, cakes, and the list goes on. It's amazing how rewarding it is though, knowing what I serve at the end of the day is old fashioned wholesome food. I'm going to arrange with my mum to have a cooking weekend just to make sauces and jams. I have no idea about this sort of area, I've never even attempted it before. But after looking at what's in a lot of the sauces on the shelf in the supermarket, once we've finished what's in the cupboard, I'm not buying any more. Yes, it would have been sooo much easier if I'd never read that book. argh! lol. Oh well. Okay girls, I have to go, my youngest horror has pulled the kitchen bin over and will probably crawl in if I don't stop him. Hope everyone's well. xx